Single Pages Jan 2009

Mayhem in Mumbai

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

Terror in the Name of God

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Terrorism—and this includes terror resorted to by non-state actors as well as by the state—today poses a grave threat to the peoples of both India and Pakistan. Islamist and Hindutva terrorism feed on each other, while posing to be each other’s most inveterate foes. BY YOGINDER SIKAND “Never forget that the life of this world is only a game and a passing delight, a show ….the life of this world is nothing but means of deception: (The Quran, Al-Hadid: 20) “There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim” (Baba Guru Nanak Sahib) According to media reports, it is possible that the recent deadly assault on Mumbai was masterminded by the Lashkare Tayyeba, a Pakistan-based self-styled Islamist terrorist outfit. Whether the attacks were indeed the handiwork of the Lashkar, as is being alleged, or of some other agency, such as the CIA and the Israseli Mossad, as others believe, remains to be fully investigated, but there can be no doubt that radical Islamism, like radical Hindutva, poses a major threat to peace and security in both India and Pakistan. What makes such terror-driven selfstyled Islamist groups thrive in Pakistan? It would appear that the very foundational myth of Pakistan, the so-called ‘two nation theory’ on which the country was founded, is itself conducive to militaristic interpretations of Islam. In a mirror image of the thesis propounded by the early ideologues of Hindutva—that the Hindus and Muslims of India were two entirely

different nations and that the latter could for autonomy in provinces increasingly a major impetus under the American-backed live in India only if they agreed to turn Hindu restive of Punjabi domination mounted, first and hugely unpopular military dictator, or else be stripped of all civic rights—the in the erstwhile East Bengal, and then in General Zia ul-Haq, who cynically backed ideologues of the Pakistan movement Baluchistan and Sindh, the Pakistani state radical Islamist groups to win public support claimed that the Hindus and Muslims of pre- came to increasingly rely on an instrumental as well as to pursue the CIA-funded war Partition India were two irreconcilable use and cynical manipulation of Islam and against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was nations that could not live together. On the on the bogey of Hindu or Indian domination at around this time that self-styled Islamist basis of this specious argument, they to ensure its survival and increasingly groups began entering the political arena in demanded a separate state for the Indian threatened legitimacy. Naturally, this a major way, setting up political parties and Muslims. This is how Pakistan came into expanded the space and scope for groups, fighting elections. This led to all sorts of being. not just the Lashkar, but scores of others as compromises, to widespread corruption and Thus, the very basis of the Pakistan well, who claimed to speak in the name of to rapidly escalating militancy by different movement was the myth of undying hatred Islam to whip up anti-Indian and anti-Hindu Islamist groups competing with each other and hostility between Hindus and Muslims. sentiments. For them hatred of India and to prove to the electorate their purported This so-called ‘two-nation theory’ remains the Hindus were considered as among the claims of representing and speaking for the official ideology of the state of Pakistan, defining features of Pakistani nationalism. Islam. The more obscurantist a group’s and is taught to every Pakistani child in The rise of the Lashkar and similar self- approach was with regard to a whole host school through carefully doctored styled jihadist groups thus cannot be of issues—women’s rights, the Kashmir textbooks. To question the theory, as many understood in isolation from these broader question, relations with India and so on— Pakistanis privately do, is considered a political processes. These groups received Cont. on page 6 punishable crime and as Ayurvedic & Unani Treatment Available akin to sedition. Accordingly, the Pakistani state has, since its inception, seen its survival as being crucially Dr. Mehboob Khan, well-known traditional doctor from a family of dependent on actively native physicians since 300 years, offers simple and effective promoting as well as treatment for Piles & Fistula, Fissure, Constipation, Irritation, indirectly abetting antiItching, Bleeding and related anal problems without surgery. Ladies Indian and anti-Hindu sentiments. As movements patients are also treated by a Lady Doctor. The Karnataka Rajyotsava Award Winner

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Mayhem in Mumbai Cont. from page 5 the more ardently ‘Islamic’ it considered itself to be and it presented itself so to the public whose support it sought to win. Under Zia, several dozen radical Islamist groups were liberally funded by the Saudis and the Americans in the war in Afghanistan, but soon these went out of control. They turned against their American patrons and started dreaming of exporting their self-styled jihad to the rest of the world. Some of them, including the Lashkar, even went to the extent of calling for the establishment of a global so-called Islamic Caliphate and for conquering the entire world under the ‘Islamic flag’. Whether or not the leaders of these groups actually believed all this bombastic rhetoric no one can say, but it certainly appealed to vast numbers of youth, particularly from impoverished families, who were fed on a steady diet of fanciful tales about the luxuries they would wallow in if they died or were ‘martyred’ in the cause of what was presented to them as a divine mission. These groups went on to serve what were seen as the strategic interests of the Pakistani state, as for instance in Kashmir, where they were sent to battle Indian forces as well as Kashmiri nationalist groups struggling for a sovereign Jammu and Kashmir, which would be independent of both India and Pakistan. Since Pakistan was a crucial ally of the West, America chose to remain mute in the face of these developments. Likewise, these groups were solidly backed by the Pakistani state in its

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

Terror in the Name of God

desperate effort to install the pro-Pakistan Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and this also received American support. The Lashkar set up several training camps in Afghanistan and gave the Taliban considerable military and moral support. It is thus the consistent assistance given by the Pakistani state to self-styled Islamist groups that has allowed them to flourish in the country, so much so that now, when the Pakistani state has itself begun to face an immense threat from these very groups, it finds itself helpless. It is an indicator of how powerful these groups have become in Pakistan that even though the present government might want to clamp down on them it cannot do so. Large parts of Pakistan are today characterized by extreme lawlessness where the writ of the state does not run. Decades of cynical manipulation of Islam by the Pakistani state for the narrowly construed ends of Pakistan’s elites have now led to a situation where even if the state wants to curb these selfstyled Islamist groups it finds itself helpless. P o w e r f u l sections within the Pakistani 65, MG Road, Blumoon Complex, Bangalore - 560 001. Ph: 25589847 state apparatus, including in the ISI and the Army, are fiercely averse to taking any action agai-nst these groups, No.149, Commercial Street, Bangalore - 560 001. Ph: 2558 9642. Fax: 2509 1288 and are said to be consistently providing u support to them. But is the u Pakistani state u serious in its claims of being u determined to take on Islamist u terror groups that have mushru oomed across the country? It appu ears not, just as the Indian state has not taken any serious steps against Hindutva terror groups in India. The Paki-

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stani government claims to have banned the Lashkar, to have frozen all its assets and to have put its leaders under arrest. But ample indications exist to suggest that, in actual fact, the Lashkar is being permitted to operate freely after being conveniently allowed to change its name and re-christen itself as the Jamaat ud-Dawa. The Jamaat ud-Dawa’s website is freely accessible on the Internet, relaying incendiary, hate-driven speeches of its senior leaders, who seem to be under no control whatsoever. The Markaz’s magazines in English, Arabic and Urdu continue to be published, with a reported circulation of several hundred thousand. On a visit to Lahore three years ago I chanced upon a bookshop in the very heart of the sprawling Urdu Bazaar that specializes in Lashkar literature that spews venom and hatred against India and the Hindus, but also against a whole host of Muslim groups that the Lashkar does not consider genuinely Islamic— including the followers of the Sufis, the Barelvis, the quietistic Deobandi-related Tablighi Jamaat and the Shias, all of which it brands as ‘enemies of Islam’ or their ‘agents’. And, I was told, despite the fact that the Lashkar was officially ‘banned’, it still operated from its headquarters in Muridke, not far from Lahore, and also managed several dozens of centres across the country under various names. Is one to imagine that the Pakistani government is so weak in the face of radical groups as to be unable to close all these institutions down? In this context, the question arises as to why Pakistani civil society has been unable to effectively challenge the venomous (and what I, as someone who has studied Islam for the past two decades, regard as a wholly distorted) version of Islam that is propelled by selfstyled Islamist groups such as the Lashkar. This issue is particularly intriguing given the fact that radical Islamist groups have consistently received only a relatively small share of the vote in successive elections, indicating that their hate-driven vision of Islam does not appeal to the majority of Pakistani people. There are several reasons for this, among the most salient being the fact that the liberal, progressive middle class in Pakistan is very miniscule, the country still remaining largely feudal, tribalistic and extremely patriarchal in its set-up

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and ethos. Efforts by the few liberal Islamic scholars that exist in Pakistan to articulate progressive interpretations of Islam on a range of issues—including women’s rights, relations with nonMuslims and relations between India and Pakistan—have generally met with stern opposition and even violence from Islamist outfits, with some of these scholars being forced to flee for safety to the West. The sheer fear of being killed for publicly opposing radicals and their perverted brand of Islam keeps numerous progressive thinkers in Pakistan silent, thus perpetuating a vicious circle in which the radicals are allowed to go unchallenged. Furthermore, the state has consistently denied space to progressive Islamic scholars, fearing their potential for dissent from the official view, seeing the radicals as more pliable and amenable to manipulation. This explains, for instance, the fact that despite its bombastic ‘Islamic’ credentials, Pakistan is yet to produce any well-known Islamic intellectual who has sought to deal creatively with the manifold demands and challenges that modernity poses. The status of Islamic, in addition to social science, research in Pakistan is woeful, and this can be explained, in part, by the fear on the part of the establishment of voices of dissenting scholars that might challenge ruling myths. The fact that Pakistan spends less than 2 per cent of its budget on education and that numerous Vice-Chancellors of Pakistani universities are retired army generals are indicators of this mind-set. Terrorism—and this includes terror resorted to by non-state actors as well as by the state—today poses a grave threat to the peoples of both India and Pakistan. Islamist and Hindutva terrorism feed on each other, while posing to be each other’s most inveterate foes. I recall reading some years ago—I cannot recall where, though—the perverse pleasure that a senior Lashkar expressed when the BJP-led NDA government came to power. Syed Maududi, the chief ideologue of the Jamaat-e Islami, who can be considered the major architect of modernday Islamism, is on record as having declared that he would prefer India to be an officially Hindu country to being secular because that would further his case for the ‘Islamic state’ that he dreamed of establishing in Pakistan. Islamist outfits in Pakistan find ready fodder for whipping up anti-Indian and anti-Hindu passions by pouncing on acts of terror and anti-Muslim violence spearheaded by Hindutva groups in India, often abetted by the state. Likewise, gruesome acts of terror committed by Pakistan-based Islamist groups are quickly seized upon by Hindutva forces in India to further demonise Muslims and to build their Hindu vote-bank. Hindu and Islamist terror thus enjoy a symbiotic or mutually beneficial relationship while claiming to Cont. on page 15

Mayhem in Mumbai BY A STAFF WRITER ot possessing a television set myself, I able to listen to the recording, hosted on the Internet, of a conversation which took place some days ago between a terrorist holed up at Nariman House in Mumbai and calling himself ‘Imran Babar’ and reporters of the India TV channel. (http://uk.youtube. com/watch?v=QhO6rynb1C8). It is plainly evident from the conversation that the terrorist was a Pakistani, most likely a Punjabi. This obvious from his accent and the sort of Urdu he speaks. One can easily make out that he had been carefully tutored by his mentors who masterminded the deadly terror assault on Mumbai to intersperse his hate-driven harangue with some Hindi words (shanti, parivar etc.) and to use Urdu words in the typical Hindi way (jabardasti, instead of zabardasti, etc.) so as to give the misleading impression that he and the other terrorists with him were Indian Muslims, not Pakistanis. The terrorists claimed to belong to the ‘Deccan’, in India, but it is obvious that this was not at all the case. There can be no doubt that these Pakistani terrorists were trained to lie that they were Indian Muslims who were allegedly resorting to terror in revenge for the atrocities committed on Muslims in India. Why the Pakistan-based terror outfit behind the attacks would do this needs no explanation. The aim of the attacks was probably to destabilise India, fuel HinduMuslim violence, instigate Muslims to take to terror in response to attacks by Hindus and then drown India in flames. This, indeed, is precisely what several Pakistan-based selfstyled Islamist groups have been consistently plotting to do for decades, although, mercifully, by and large, the Indian Muslims have refused to fall into their trap. It is to the credit of the Indian Muslims that, barring some stray exceptions, they have consistently opposed all forms of terror, including that committed in the name of Islam, despite the growing menace of Hindutva-driven fascist terror across India, sometimes abetted by the state, of which they are the principal and worst-hit victims. The Lashkar-e Tayyeba has never made any bones about its dastardly plans of destabilisng

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ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009 and destroying India. It has gone to the ridiculous extent of claiming that it will not rest till the ‘Islamic’ flag is hoisted atop the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi and till India is absorbed into what it calls in its lunacy ‘Greater Pakistan’. In order to gain theological legitimacy for its deadly project it even claims that the Prophet Muhammad is said to have declared that Muslims who participate in a war with India would be saved from the fires of hell. There can be no doubt that this sort of horrendous misuse and deliberate distortion of Islam by the Lashkar has played a major role in attracting vast numbers of would-be terrorists in Pakistan to its fold who are fed with the poisonous propaganda that by participating in what it calls a holy war against India they would win a ticket to heaven. The Pakistani state, it must be noted, has taken no action whatsoever against this heinous propaganda, and elements of the ISI are said to be in cahoots with the Lashkar and other such hatedriven self-styled Islamist groups in the country. In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, and when asked what action Pakistan had taken against the Lashkar, the Pakistani President hurriedly shrugged off the question by claiming that the Lashkar had been ‘banned’. If that is indeed the case—which it is obviously not—then how does Mr. Zardari explain the fact that, as the Lashkar’s official Urdu website itself announces, on the 29th of November the Lashkar’s supremo Hafiz Muhammad Saeed addressed what it termed a ‘mammoth’ convention at ‘New Saeedabad’ (a locality named after him?), organized by the Sindh unit of the Markaz Dawat ul-Irshad (the ‘religious’ and political wing of the Lashkar). It was held, of all places, in the premises of the local Government Degree College. The Lashkar’s website is replete with news about the whirlwind tours of Saeed and his cronies across the country, delivering rabblerousing speeches, thundering against India and non-Muslims in general. And the outfit, Mr. Zardari wants us to believe, is ‘banned’. Having been writing on Indian Muslim issues for years now, I can say with some confidence that the general Indian Muslim is completely fed up and fiercely opposed to the gross misuse of Islam by the Pakistani state and Pakistan-

Lies of the Lashkar

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The horrendous misuse and deliberate distortion of Islam by the Lashkar has played a major role in attracting vast numbers of would-be terrorists in Pakistan to its fold who are fed with the poisonous propaganda that by participating in what it calls a holy war against India they would win a ticket to heaven.

based self-styled Islamist outfits. Deep down inside, most of them lament the very creation of Pakistan, based on the discredited ‘two nation’ theory, for it has left them permanently helpless in the face of Hindutva aggression. They know full well that, despite its bombastic claims, Pakistan is far being from the ‘Islamic state’ it claims to be—with its problems of poverty, illiteracy, mounting inequalities, endemic violence, and lawlessness, its corrupt American puppet politicians who have reduced Islam to a plaything to be employed for their own purposes, and so on. They face the brunt of mounting Islamophobia stirred up by Hindutva fascist forces that play upon Pakistan’s dubious Kashmir policy and the heinous crimes of Pakistan-based selfstyled Islamist radicals to whip up violently anti-Muslim sentiments in India. The general Indian Muslim’s undisguised disgust of the terror in the name of Islam that groups like the Lashkar are seeking to spearhead is amply evident in the news that is pouring in of Muslims across the country roundly denouncing the Mumbai attacks and even insisting that the dreaded terrorists not be allowed to be buried on Indian soil. India’s Muslims need to be

seen as a potential asset, rather than a liability, in the struggle against terrorism. Scores of Indian ulema or Islamic clerics are now openly castigating all forms of terror, organizing mass rallies and even issuing fatwas to get the message across. The Indian state and civil society urgently needs to realize that hounding the Indian Muslims, instead of seeking to listen to their voices and concerns and genuinely dialoguing with them, can only play into the hands of outfits of groups like the Lashkar. The fact

that Hindutva terror and Islamist terror only feed on each other must also be urgently acknowledged. Our very future as a country crucially depends on all communities, particularly Hindus and Muslims, presenting a joint front to work together for peace and security. That would be a fitting reply to both Hindutva and radical Islamist forces, whose very existence is based on the frighteningly Manichaean notion of perpetual antagonism between Hindus and Muslims.■

ADVT

Mayhem in Mumbai

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

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Pakistanis, You left us in 1947, Now leave us Alone! The Indian Muslims, particularly our Urdu Press should behave responsibly. It is no time for a blame game. BY A.M.JAMSHEED BAHSA he Mumbai terror attack has no doubt shocked the nation. It was an attack on Mumbai, an attack on India. It is a matter of concern for all of us Indians. But the community that has to be concerned most is that of the Muslims of India, because those who came and attacked the financial capital on the fateful day of 26/11 were bearing Muslim names and had come from the so-called Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It is a different thing that the Muslims would disown them as practising Muslims, for they were sporting guns and ammunition and above all they were wining and dining, and who knows, womanising, something not expected from hard-core religious elements. To a common man they were just Muslim mercenaries on a mission to cause maximum damage as per the directions of their mentors sitting across the border. They did exactly that and vanished from this world, a fate they deserved most. Then what next? Pakistanis may try to put a brave face but they cannot deny that these evil men were their countrymen, born, brought up and trained by a terrorist organisation in their country for this day. The Indian Muslims, particularly our Urdu Press should behave responsibly. It is no time for a blame game. It is no time for concoction of a theory of conspiracy alleging complicity of the saffron brigade. It may be best left to the investigating agencies to unravel the real players behind this sordid drama. The whole of India and every Indian is angry. Not for the loss of life and destruction caused alone, but for the attitude of the

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BY AIJAZ ZAKA SYED atching the terror nightmare unfold in Mumbai over the past three days on TV, my children have repeatedly asked me: “Who are these terrorists and why are they doing this?” And every time I wished I could offer them a convincing answer. I was clueless why these people had taken over Mumbai and were targeting people who had nothing to do with them. I was also ashamed to tell them that the terrorists were Muslims and came from a country that was created in the name of Islam. At work, while my colleagues went about covering the madness in Mumbai and laying out pages with the images of the Taj Hotel with its Islamic arches and domes go up in smoke, I find it hard to look at them in the eye. This happens all the time. Every time innocents are targeted in the name of Islam around the world, one can’t face one’s non-Muslim friends and colleagues. A distraught friend who has devoted her life to speaking and fighting on behalf of Arabs and Muslims wrote: “I’ve had it with the Arabs and Muslims and Islamic militancy. Forgive me but I am throwing in the towel.” I couldn’t write back to her. She grew up in Mumbai and is upset. She went on to say: “The Muslims and Islam have a problem and only they can solve it. If they do not, the whole world will

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politicians and helplessness of the government of the day. The people’s ire would be shown elsewhere in the next ballot, but the mood is one of action, a firm action, a decisive message that should go across the borders and the steps that should be taken to secure the nation and insulate it from future attacks. Yesterday it was through land, today it was through sea and who knows tomorrow it may be through air. All these vulnerable places have to be protected and secured for we should allow no incursions into our land from any side. These steps are vital for the future of this country. The prime concern of the citizen today is how safe and secure we are in our own country. Like me, many such Indian Muslims are equally angry and frustrated and unable to understand why disaster after disaster is staring at them all the time. What’s wrong with our community and why are we in such a position of feeling like strangers and alien in our own land. We have been living here for centuries and also after we were ditched by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Company, who partitioned India in the name of two-nation theory. Don’t the Muslims of today feel angry at them for they were responsible for our present state of affairs? They left us, and still they are not leaving us alone to deal with our problems ourselves. Who are they to interfere in our internal matters? Muslims should come out in open and tell the people of Pakistan or any element fighting in the name of Islam to keep off from our problems and mind their own business. The government of India did the right thing in issuing

a demarche, a strongly worded message to Pakistan, to do something tangible to wipe out the remnants of terror outfits from their soil and hand over all those listed wanted criminals that are enjoying the hospitality of the Pakistani people at the cost of Indians, including the infamous Don Dawood Ibrahim, the kingpin of 1993 Bombay blasts. President Zardari, came on his knees virtually pleading with India to spare Pakistan and not to punish her as retaliation for the act of a few disgruntled elements.. Indians demands firm action in one voice and would not tolerate any more attacks on them. Muslims of India are solidly behind the Government and the people of this great country. It is incumbent on the Muslim intelligentsia and the Urdu Press in particular that they do not inflame passions in any way. Instead, they should send a clear cut message to all the Muslims that India is our country, where we have to live and die. We are Indians and Muslims and there is no distinction between these two. We the Muslims of India constitute the biggest Muslim population of the world after Indonesia. Though we are leaderless for the time being , we are resilient enough to sort out our own problems without outside interference as we have been doing in the last 61 years.■

No Place to Hide Will we allow mainstream Islam to turn into a moderate fringe, while extremists take centre-stage?

turn against them.” If this is how our most loyal friends feel, imagine the sentiments and reactions of the rest of the world. Can you blame

the world if it’s turning against Muslims? What do you expect when not a day passes without the name of our faith being dragged through the mud by fellow

believers around the world? I know that Muslim leaders, including those in the highest echelons of power, have lately started speaking out against the extremists. The Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the oldest and most respected centres of learning in the Muslim world, issued a fatwa against terrorism at a large gathering of Islamic scholars in June. Last month, nearly 5,000 scholars backed the edict at a huge congregation in Hyderabad. The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), and Saudi Arabia have, of late, been vehement in condemning these repulsive acts of violence targeting innocents. But clearly, we need to do more to be heard. The great irony of the Mumbai attacks is the killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, a brave officer trying to establish the link between Hindu extremists and the Malegaon blasts. He was killed outside the Cama hospital.Obviously, some Muslims do not know their friends from their enemies. It’s all very well for us to say Islam has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism. We can go on deluding ourselves that these psychopaths do not represent us. However, the world finds it hard to accept this line of argument as it sees the extremists increasingly assert themselves and take the centre-stage while mainstream Islam turns into a moderate fringe. (The writer is Opinion Editor, Khaleej Times) ■

Mayhem in Mumbai

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

Muslims have lost their Wisdom

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he terrorists who assaulted Mumbai had done extensive planning. This made me think why these people were so capable of negative planning, and completely lacked any inclination towards positive planning. This sort of mentality has become endemic among many Muslims. Nobody is doing planning for the positive task of spreading God’s message, and love and peace. BY MAULANA WAHIDUDDIN KHAN n November 26, 2008, Mumbai witnessed the worst kind of terror attack. Ten terrorists entered several buildings and indiscriminately fired at people, leaving behind several dead and wounded. According to a tradition, at the time of the Prophet (Pbuh), there was a man whose only concern was to speak negatively of the Prophet and spread wrong ideas about him. The son of this man became very angry and asked the Prophet to allow him to kill his father. The Prophet told him not to do that, as then people would say that the Prophet allowed killing among his people. The lesson which can be inferred from this incident is that anything, which defames the name of Islam should not be done. These incidents are mentioned in books but people fail to infer or draw lessons from them as they do not engage in deep study. In the Jewish Talmud there are many stories. In one incident, the Prophet Moses prayed to God: “O! God, take anything away from my followers but do not take away their wisdom.” God replied: “O! Moses, if We decide to take away something from a community, it is their wisdom that We take away.” Today, many Muslims have lost their wisdom, as is evident from the events which have taken place recently. Those Muslims who are said to be involved in terrorism in Bombay gained nothing. In Palestine, the Arabs have been fighting for the last 60 years and have not achieved anything. In many places Muslims have resorted to suicide bombings, although suicide is unlawful in Islam. This is a result of deterioration and lack of wisdom. Those who are behind these suicide attacks are not afraid of accountability and the fact they will have to stand in front of God after death. What is the reason for this madness and how did it originate? The reason for this madness is hatred. Hate can make a man do anything. Hate began from Satan. When God created Adam, He asked the angels and Satan to bow before Him. Satan however, did not bow and consequently, God said to him: “You and your followers will go to hell.” Satan had developed such hate for man that despite knowing that he will be cast into hell, he did not obey God’s command. Hate is so blinding that it can take one to hell. I have studied in the Muslim

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seminaries and have participated in numerous Muslim gatherings, and in many of these places hatred and pride is instilled in the minds of Muslims. They are taught: ‘We are the caliphs and vicegerents of God on earth.” I once met an Arab whose first question to me was, “Who are we?”. He then said: “We are the Caliphs of God on earth.” I

power was over and now they should concentrate their effort on some other constructive activities like education, reform, dawah work etc. In Palestine, for example, it was God’s decision to give the political power to somebody else. Hence, Muslims should have accepted it, but they started fighting and now 60 years of fighting has given them nothing. Muslims

told him that this is not written anywhere in our books. The Sahih Al- Bukhari says that Muslims are witnesses of God. That is, they have to spread the message of God on earth. The same is alluded to in the Quran, that is, the task of Muslims is to spread God’s message and lead a life according to His instructions. However, Muslims have made themselves the selfappointed Caliphs, and have launched all sorts of movements that propagate the ideology of capturing political power. This thinking emerged when the Ottoman and Mughal empires declined, and Muslims started considering the rest of the world as usurpers and oppressors who snatched their rights and power from them. Political power is like an examination paper. A test paper can never be the monopoly of one; it would change hands from people to people as God wants to test every community. Hence if political power has been taken away from you then you need to have patience. When political power was with you then it was your test paper and now, when it has been given to someone else, it is their test paper. No Muslim leader could tell this to the Muslims and pacify the political shock which they received after the breaking up of the Muslim empires in the face of Western colonialism. No one told them that their test paper of political

should have realised that God had now wanted to test some other community. Therefore, he gave them political power. But Muslims rose up to fight, and it was equivalent to fighting God’s decision and hence they attained nothing. As a result, all the Muslims got conditioned in hateful thinking. Before the Second World War, the thinking of the Japanese was same as that of the Muslims. Hirohito was the Emperor of Japan at that time. The Japanese had the concept of Imperial Divinity, that is their king – the so-called ‘god-king’— should rule the world. Consequently, they fought with many countries. It was the Japanese who started the concept of suicide bombing known as “hara-kiri”. But in 1945, America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan and the Japanese army was completely destroyed. Japan suffered a humiliating defeat. Then the Japanese developed second thoughts, that is, if the king was god then he would have saved them, but because they were severely crippled due to those bombs they realised that the king was not god. Hirohito then renounced the concept of Imperial Divinity and the Japanese have never looked back since then. This makes me ponder as to why this hate does not get finished among Muslims? This is because Muslims’ hate

is a reflection of a certain mind-set. The so-called ‘god-king’ of the Japanese was proved wrong and therefore the concept of ‘god-king’ died. However, a mind-set cannot be done away on its own. The mind-set which inspires hate for others in many Muslims cannot be killed like an individual. Nor can it cannot kill itself. This mind-set can be replaced by deconditioning alone. Hirohito said “I’m not god,” and this led the Japanese to discard their unfounded notions and pave the path to progress. But the case of Muslims is very different. In their case, their mindset has to be transformed to change their thinking. The thinking of Muslims has to be changed. There has to be long process of de-conditioning. There are two kinds of deconditioning: one is the Prophetic de-conditioning; that is the deconditioning which the Prophet did of his companions. Then the companions did the deconditioning of some of their companions. But now self-deconditioning has to be done. This is a very difficult task. Ideological deconditioning has to be done among the Muslims to help them come out of hate. It is essential to understand the distinction between the negative engineering of the mind and the positive engineering of the mind. Today, minds are being negatively engineered with hatred and pride. Many Muslims live in this fallacy that they are a special race, and when they are not treated specially then they are frustrated and hold others responsible for their not receiving the special treatment that they expect. The terrorists who assaulted Mumbai had done extensive planning. This made me think why these people were so capable of negative planning, and completely lacked any inclination towards positive planning. This sort of mentality, unfortunately, has become endemic among many Muslims. Nobody is doing planning for the positive task of spreading God’s message, and love and peace. This is because as years passed by, this work became dead in Muslims. But it alone can promote positive planning as it requires well-wishing for the whole of humankind. We must therefore focus our energies on spreading God’s love and restrain from any negative and destructive activities.■

Editorial

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

LETTERS

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Bouquets and Brickbats

Denial of Burial I have learnt with concern about the decision of the Indian Muslim Council, not to allow the burial of the nine killed Mumbai attackers, on an Islamic graveyard. As a reason, the Council declares, that the attackers cannot be considered Muslims because they went against the teachings of Islam. Another Council-member said that the attackers had defamed the religion. Of course I agree that the Mumbai attacks are contrary to the teachings of Islam. However, viewed from a religious perspective, the decision of the Council is also a defamation of the teachings of the Islam which is based on respect for every human being, regardless of descent or committed crime The denial of a grave is not only one of the most extreme signs of disrespect, it is also a violation of the right of every human being on human dignity, confirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is evident, that the killed Mumbai attackers are guilty of very serious crimes, for which they would be held accountable on earth, in a fair and independent trial, according to international standards. However, now they are dead, no Council or other authority has the right to deny them eternal peace on a graveyard. Astrid Essed Florijn 444, Amsterdam The Netherlands [email protected]

some good suggestions, I felt that this article advises us to be slaves of the oppressors in the name of democracy. The writer’s comments on Azan and Qurbani show that he is ashamed and fearful to be a Muslim. (Sorry for the harsh words). What a disgusting and disheartening solution about Azan. If you want to guide the Muslim community, guide them through the Quran and Hadith and not from you own thoughts and beliefs. Akhil Ahmed Chakwa [email protected]

Toughest Punishment I appreciate the work of Islamic Voice. It was sad to see the irresponsible telecasting through TV channels, when Mumbai was under siege recently. The spirit was absent, when the anchors instead of reporting, injected an investigation campaign and told the details about the terrorists when our intelligence agencies were not able to even recognise who the terrorists were. The terrorists must be subjected to the toughest possible punishment, no matter which community they belong to and thereby, not only purifying the country of the anti-social elements, but also let common people live in peace. But it would be possible only when the real culprits are arrested and then punished. Abdul Hameed Qasmi Markazul Ma’arif [email protected]

Resear ch Pr oject Research Project “Mudukulathur MuslimsToday and Tomorrow”, a research project has been initiated by www.mudukulathur .com. Those who have any information about Mudukulathur can send it to muduvaihidayath @gmail.com or to M. Shanmugham, 33 Maranayanar Street, Ilayangudi-630702

Misguiding Muslims Before I began to read the article, “Manual for Social Harmony for Muslims,” in the December 2008 issue of Islamic Voice, I found the writer’s name was a bit familiar. I am reading Islamic Voice for the first time. After reading this article, I have decided not to pick up Islamic Voice again. Though there are

(Please email letters to editor with your full address and email)

Community Round Up

People Kishanganj DM Firaque Ahmad to be honoured Patna: The Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) has decided to honor Firaque Ahmad, District Magistrate (DM) of Kishanganj for fair execution of the annual examination of class 10th in the district in March 2008. The Bihar School Examination Board conducts Secondary School Examination twice every year, the annual and supplementary examinations. The annual examination is normally conducted in the month of February/March. According to Anup Kumar Sinha, secretary of the Board, Kishanganj has been given grade ‘A’ for fair examinations. There were no report of irregularities and use of unfair means in the examination from Kishanganj. Since the DM of a district is the controller of examination for the whole district, the Board has decided to give Firaque Ahmad an award for his commitment to his duty. Before assuming office of the DM of Kishanganj, Firaque Ahmad was the chairman of Bihar Text Book Publishing Corporation. He is known for his honesty and punctuality. ■

Indian Shining in China Bangalore: Suraiya Tarannum, Head of the Telecommunication Engineering, AMC Engineering College Bangalore was the sole representative from India to participate in the 11th IEEE International Conference on Communication Systems (IEEE-ICCS 2008) held in Guangzhou, China between November 19-21, 2008. She presented her research paper entitled,” Dynamic Hierarchical Communication Paradigm for Wireless Sensor Networks: A Centralised Energy Efficient Approach. ■

Put this under People column DR SHOHAB IS AIUUTA GENERAL SECRETARY Jammu : Dr Shohab Inayat Malik, Professor of Urdu in Jammu University has been elected as the General Secretary of the All India University Teachers Association (AIUUTA). A decision to this effect was taken in an Urdu teachers conference held at Kashmir University in which over 150 Urdu teachers participated. Dr Malik took over charge of general secretary from Dr Ali Javed, Director, National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL). All India University Teachers Association (AIUUTA) is a body of All India Urdu Teachers working on national level for the promotion of Urdu language. Dr. Malik is also the President of Rasa Javadani Memorial Literary Society (RJMLS), a NGO working for the cause of Urdu language in the state. ■

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ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

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Poor are getting Poorer New Delhi: The All India Muslim Economic Council (AIMEC) organised a conference on December 2, 2008, of all Indian organisations working on interest-free basis in Deoband, Saharanpur. In his presidential address, Maulana Hasib Siddiqui, chairman of AIMEC, said: “Muslims dreamt for long to establish financial institutions conforming to Shari’ah, but most of their dreams remained confined to issues like worship, religious education, nikah and inheritance, so much progress could not be made in the field of financial aspects of life and interest-

free system of trade and commerce. Now we have to take some steps in the light of Islamic banking system based on Shari’ah.” Expressing concern over the increase in number of people living below the poverty line, economic expert Dr. Syed Zafar Mahmood said: “It is the need of the hour to establish interest-free and cooperative institutions in order to eliminate economic backwardness among Muslims.” “The poor are getting poorer and capitalists are gaining in their capital. The Islamic economic system is the best means to prevent it,” he added. ■

Hari Masjid Police Firing: Victim files PIL BY A STAFF WRITER Mumbai: The Bombay High Court recently tightened the noose on the state and central governments while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Farooq Mapkar, a victim of firing at Hari Masjid on January 10, 1993. Justice B. N Srikrishna had indicted policeinspector Nikhil Kapse for firing on worshippers inside Hari Masjid, Wadala, which resulted in the death of six Muslims. Farooq Mapkar, injured in the firing, had filed a petition asking the CBI to look into the matter. Mapkar has urged the court to direct the police to book assistant police inspector Nikhil Kapse for murder and also hand over the probe to the CBI. Kapse, then a police sub-inspector attached to the RAK Marg police station had ordered the firing in the Masjid at Sewri. “The complaint (made by Mapkar) on its own, along with the (Srikrishna Commission) report, prima facie discloses a cognizable offence”, observed the judges. Public prosecutor Satish Borulkar told the court that a Special Task Force appointed by the state government to look into the commission’s report that probed the 1992-93 Mumbai riots had said that no offence was made out. Mapkar’s complaint about the incident mentions one Shamsuddin, who had been injured in the firing inside the mosque. As he came out of the mosque, Shamsuddin bent down to tend to his injured leg. Mapkar saw Kapse shoot him at that moment. Mapkar had also recounted this in his affidavit filed before the Srikrishna Commission. Justices F. I. Rebello and R. S Mohite of the

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Bombay High Court rejected the reasons given by the CBI for declining to take up the Hari Masjid case of the 1992-93 riots. The CBI had cited delay as the first reason for refusing to take up the case. Justice F. Rebello pointed out that this reason did not hold. “A judicial commission of inquiry was set up that gave its findings in the victims’ favour in 1998. The government then set up the Special Task Force which exonerated the police officer without either examining the complainant (Mapkar), or those injured in the incident. Nobody is listening to the plea these citizens have been making since 1993. The CBI’s second reason was that this was “a simple matter” which could be investigated by the State government. Justice Mohite pointed out that the matter was far from simple. “There are undercurrents of communal bias,” Justice Rebello said, adding, “The complaint is not only about the general firing at the Masjid, but also a specific allegation that an injured man has been shot at point-blank range. Despite this, all these years the State apparatus has been saying nothing wrong has been done!” Finally, the CBI had opined that taking up this inquiry was not in “public interest”. “What is public interest for the CBI?” asked Justice Rebello. The court was appalled by the fact that the statements of the injured were not recorded even by the STF. Senior counsel Vijay Pradhan, who is appearing for Mapkar, submitted that the STF never visited the mosque or met any of the injured persons, including Mapkar. “This is not how a criminal investigation should be carried out,” Justice Mohite said.■

Community Round Up

Mumbai first eco-friendly Mosque

Mumbai: The Dawoodi Bohra community has decided to give Mumbai its first eco-friendly mosque. The construction of the mosque at the Tambawala compound in Mazgaon in south central Mumbai is expected to be completed in two years. Architect, Esmail Neemuchwala said the primary focus would on rainwater harvesting and using less electricity. “We want to give the best to the environment from which we take the most,” he said. “In a 120-sq ft room, one fan is sufficient because there are usually three people at a given time. But the number goes up to 30 during prayers. And this calls for more fans,” Neemuchwala said. “We have planned to bring down the number of fans and reduce electricity usage by 20%.” “Fatimi architecture will be prominent. It has typical floral repetitive designs and conical shaped arches. It is inspired by Mughal, Indian, and British architecture,” he said. Green lawns will border the mosque. This would help in bringing down the air temperature as it moves towards the mosque, according to Neemuchwala. The mosque will not have solar panels and instead will use rainwater harvesting as much as possible. ■

Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Awards 2008

New Delhi: Charanjeet Singh Atwal, Deputy Speaker, Lok Sabha and Justice Mohammad Suhail Ejaz Siddiqui, Chairman, National Commission for Minorities Educational Institutions, are among those to be honoured this year with the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Award 2008. Others to be honoured with the award are Manorama Deevan, Chief Editor, Press Asia International, Shahid Ali Khan (IPS), Mohammad Ateeq Siddiqui, Editor, AlYaum, New Delhi, Dr. Haneef Tareen and Saulat Public Library, Rampur. The Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Academy has been giving away awards in the fields of politics, journalism and social service since 1989. ■

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Community Round Up

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

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Mayhem in Mumbai

Theories going Around

We should not spread rumors and also refrain from spreading fantastic theories about the terrorist attack in Mumbai.

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009 14 spell of military rule, we should rise above narrow religious not do anything to push people feelings, as religious of Pakistan again into the dark chauvinism is as ugly as era of military rule. Perhaps that national chauvinism. could be one of the objectives Terrorism cannot disappear of this barbaric attack, if simply through military or Lashkar-e-Tayyiba is involved. security operations. We must Military is getting increasingly address the root causes while pushed away from political simultaneously exhorting our arena and this may not go down youth to imbibe highest values well with hawkish military of our religion, culture and officers of Pakistan. traditions. Mere moral Peace with Pakistan is discourses would be as indeed very important for the ineffective as security entire subcontinent and operations. All three things go particularly for the people of the two countries. Chauvinistic together – namely addressing nationalism only leads to war root causes, moral exhortation and sober elements in both and security operation to countries should try their best address this complex problem. to maintain peace between these (The writer can be reached at two neighbors. Also, we should [email protected]) ■

The spirit of India is stronger than the arms of terror BY ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER any questions are troubling our minds – who were these terrorists and why did they carry out such horrific operation resulting in death of nearly 200 innocent people (nine of them terrorists themselves who cannot be called innocents) in Mumbai? The Government of India and security authorities say they belonged to Lakhkar-e-Tayyiba of Pakistan and they were given rigorous training for more than six months to carry out this operation. It appears to be true as one terrorist who has been arrested has given details and other things seized from those dead also provide some indications. However, other theories which might appear rather fantastic are also circulating on internet. One Mr. Ameresh Mishra writes that it was a joint operation by RSS and MOSSAD of Israel to avenge arrest of Hindutvawadi Sadhvi, the self-proclaimed Sankracharya Pande, Lt. Col. Purohit and others. And the ATS Chief Hemant Karkare and his team were eliminated in one go. One Marathi News paper Maharashtra Times has reported that two terrorists at Cama Hospital were speaking with to the security guard in

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fluent Marathi and so question arises how Pakistanis could speak in Marathi. Also, one who was shooting down at CST railway station was fair skinned and appeared to be a foreigner. Also, it has been pointed out that before this operation, certain Jewish religious personalities had come from Israel to meet sadhus and religious personalities who are known to be supporters of Sangh Parivar and probably this operation was planned then. Mr. Mishra also claims that Hemant Karkare was “inches away from arresting Pravin Togadia” and some other high profile Hindutva personalities and hence Hemant Karkare had to be got rid of and he was got rid of through this operation. But to be frank all this does not appear to be quite convincing. Hemant Karkare, if at all that was the objective, could have been eliminated without such a massive barbaric operation. Also, though it may be true that Israel and its intelligence agency MOSSAD is sympathetic to RSS or entire Sangh Parivar, why should it undertake such a massive barbaric operation in Mumbai? RSS and MOSSAD would not

target Taj mahal and Oberoi Trident Hotels in any case and a Jewish Centre in between. Also, on the other hand, how 10 terrorists whatever amount of ammunitions, AK47s and other explosives with them could hold massive hotels like Taj and Oberoi to ransom without being overpowered in addition to shooting at Jewish centre, CST (railway station) and Cama Hospital simultaneously? At different times different numbers were given, 15-17 or more but finally authorities have confirmed they were no more than 10. It hardly stands to reason how so few terrorists could kill on such a scale and hold on for 72 hours. It appears to be incredible. In my opinion we have to be very patient until the whole truth comes out. Not only that, we should not spread rumors and also refrain from spreading fantastic theories about the incident. It is also very important that peace in the sub-continent be maintained at any cost. If we think of war with Pakistan as some people are saying, it would be really playing in the hands of terrorists and their organisations. They are out to provoke war between the two countries. Also, Pakistan has entered into the democratic era after a long

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alking with people who do not believe in the same things is not easy, but as concerned citizens, we must use all our combined skills to find a common language of harmony and unite our country with a new inclusive vision of peace and brotherhood. We represent the moderate majority of our country who are convinced that no cause can be highlighted, much less served, through mindless violence. Terrorism is irrational and anti-life; it can only subvert progress, undermine security and sharpen mistrust. We strongly condemn the barbaric attacks on our foreign guests and fellow citizens in Mumbai and denounce the sinister intentions underlying this cult of violence. As Indians we stand together united in our resolve to frustrate the sinister intentions of these merchants of cruelty to wound our collective psyche and our oneness as a nation. Terror may make our hearts bleed but it will not break our bonds asunder. The spirit of India is stronger than the arms of terror. From this desperate and dastardly event, we hear an appeal that comes to us, and to all Indians, loud and clear. We can no longer afford to live the lie that religions are dividing walls. They are brides of brotherhood. The time has come for us that we shall allow none to divide us along the lines of caste or creed. The duties, loyalties and discipline implied in our citizenship should matter to us first and foremost, if our democratic culture and national unity are to survive. As Indians we are brothers and sisters and, as such, the keepers of each other’s life and liberty. We are the proud progeny of Mother India and we shall stay so, no matter what. We commiserate with those who have lost their loved ones in this carnage and salute those who have laid down their lives in combating the terrorists. We congratulate the security forces, especially the NSG, for a difficult job splendidly done. Signatories 1. Valson Thampu - Member, National Integration Council 2. Dr. G.S. Jayasree - Editor, Samyukta, Trivandrum 3. Mini Krishnan - Editor / Publisher, Chennai 4. A. Faizur Rahman - executive committee member, Harmony India, Chennai 5. Usha Jesudasan - Writer, Chennai 6. Vasantha Surya - Poet & Translator 7. Fathima Muzaffer - Vice President, Islamic Information Centre 8. V.M. Khaleelur Rahman - freelance journalist 9. Moulana Abdul Khalique Nadwi - Khateeb, Masji-e-Hira, Chennai 10. Prof. T.M.Zackriah Badsha - Former, Joint Director, Collegiate Education, Chennai ■

Mayhem in Mumbai

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

Terror in the Name of God Cont. from page 6 oppose each other. This obvious fact must be recognized when conceiving responses to the challenge of terrorism in our region. There are no easy solutions to the predicament we find ourselves in today. But there is surely at least one thing that we must do, and this was suggested to me by the noted New Delhi-based Arya Samaj scholar, Swami Agnivesh, who has consistently been speaking out against all forms of terror, including in the name of Islam and Hinduism as well as state terrorism. The most effective way to challenge terrorism in the name of religion, Swami Agnivesh suggested, is for Muslims to denounce and stiffly oppose terror engaged in by self-styled Islamic groups who claim to speak in the name of Islam, and for Hindus to do likewise with regard to terror spread by militant Hindu groups. Sadly, today, the approach of many of us to the phenomenon is selective and skewed, with many Hindus denouncing only the terror unleashed by self-styled Islamist groups, and many Muslims denouncing only acts of terror masterminded by Hindu groups. At the same time, many Hindus and Muslims continue to turn a blind eye to, or even support, forms of terror being perpetrated in the name of the very religion which they claim to follow. And there is something else that we need to do as individuals, and I have found that this simple principle works wonders even at a very personal level. It might sound ‘unfashionable’ or even ‘purile’ for those who do not find any place for God in their lives, but for millions of people in India and Pakistan who do believe in some higher force, no matter what they name it, it would strike an immediate chord. This principle I owe to Rano Devi, a landless Dalit labourer from the Bhil tribe who had been released through the efforts of a human rights’ group from slaverylike conditions in the estate of a powerful landlord. I Rano met while on a visit to Sindh in southern Pakistan three years ago. A powerful woman she was—dark and tall, and walking proud and erect. A courteous hostess, she welcomed me into her one-roomed hovel built on a scrawny patch of land that a social activist friend of mine had provided her and plied me with milk-less tea and a roti, which was all that she could afford.

Rano told me her story, of how she was enslaved by a landlord, who happened to be a Muslim, and who kept her for four years in shackles. Then, after a protracted legal battle, she was released through the efforts of my friend and his comrades, all of who happened to be Muslims. She went on to enunciate a simple but very compelling principle thus: ‘Live for your religion, don’t die or kill for it. Express your religion through love and service, like the brothers who rescued me did, not through oppression, murder and mayhem, for that is a heinous crime in God’s eyes. After all, we are all accountable for all our actions to God. To Him we shall return after we die, when He will decide our fate till eternity based on our deeds in this world’. ‘If we were to realize that this world is temporary and that real, eternal life starts after death,’ Rano continued softly, tears welling up in her eyes, ‘and if we were to constantly keep this in mind, perhaps people would dread to misuse God’s name for un-Godly acts’. And there was another thing that Rano said that inspires me as I write these lines: ‘We call Him Ishwar, and Muslims call Him Allah, but He is one and the same’, said Rano. ‘There are good people in every community, just as there are bad people, too. Just as that landlord who enslaved me claimed to be a Muslim, the brothers who freed me were also Muslims. And there are both good and bad people among Hindus as well. Remember that, brother. It is only when good people in every community join hands that this Hindu-Muslim problem or the problems between India and Pakistan can ever be resolved’. That sage advice from this impoverished Pakistani Dalit woman is, to my mind, a basic premise we need to start from in our joint struggle against terror in the name of religion and national chauvinism. ■

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Terrorism is not Jihad and not the Road to Jannah Cont. from cover page 77 % of the respondents agree that these extremist organisations are acquiring their ideological and religious nourishment from the customized literature which has no Quranic base or no substantiation from Hadith. In the name of Islam, this literature is widely circulated to brainwash youth. It is a documented fact that these adulterated Jihadi literature was funded and circulated by USA and western agencies to fight their dirty war in Afghanistan against the then USSR. Ironically in the process, organizations such as Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, Jamiatul Ulema Pakistan (JUP), Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, and other organizations allowed themselves to be exploited by becoming active playesr in USA sponsored Jihad for which the Indian Muslims paid a very heavy price. Are educated Indian Muslims getting trapped by the extremist organisations in the name of Islam? Is our community aware that our youth are been trapped by lunatic organizations such Lashkar-iTaiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Jaish-e-Muhammad, etc when they are working abroad? In the name of Islam, are they being brain washed? What is the modus operandi of these organisations in trapping the Indian Muslim youth? There are enough substantiated reports which point out that radical and extremist cadres of Lashkar-i-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Jaish-eMuhammad etc hunt for Indian Muslims who are working in the Gulf countries. In the name of Ijtema (gathering to learn Islam) these innocent Muslim youth are brain washed. They are exposed to twisted and adulterated version of Islam with all kinds of sob stories of Muslim persecution in India and other places. Lashkar-i-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Jaish-eMuhammad etc claim to represent Islam, but their role and reaction to 26 / 11 reflects their hidden agenda. Indian Muslims came out in open and declared to the world that these so called

benefactors of Indian Muslims should stop thinking on their behalf. Indian Muslims are capable to take care of themselves within the frame work of the Indian Constitution. There are voices amongst the Muslims which blames such terrorist acts on the Gujarat carnage, discrimination against Muslims, Babri Masjid demolition and so on. They also quote the Sachar Commission report. But these Muslims forget that under no circumstances and conditions, should terrorist activities be justified. Islam does not permit killing of innocent people. The revenge theory has no place in Islam. 88 % of the respondents said that these terrorist attacks in India had nothing to do with the plight of Indian Muslims. In fact, the perpetuators of this heinous act have their own hidden agenda. What could be the straight forward, high impact community initiative to neutralize and expose the hollow faces of these so called Jihadis or Fidayeen. These Jihadis or Fidayeen claim that they are committing the terrorist acts as it is Jihad and they will get Jannah for their sacrifice. It is very simple to expose this myth. There are ample Quranic verses and authentic Hadith which will prove that their claim is false. Islam never tolerates unprovoked aggression from its own side. Muslims are commanded in the Qur'an not to begin hostilities, embark on any act of aggression, violate the rights of others, or harm the innocent. Even hurting or destroying animals or trees is forbidden. War is waged only to defend the religious community against oppression and persecution, because the Qur'an says "let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression" (Qur'an: 2:190-193). The need of the hour is to take the simple message of Islam based on the Quran, authentic Hadith and Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) life, both to Muslim and non- Muslims and clear the air of suspicion, hate and terror. (The writer can be reached at [email protected]) ■

CCIM condemns Terror Attacks

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he Coordination Committee of Indian Muslims, which consists of leading Muslim organisations like the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, Jamiat Ulama-e Hind, Jamaat-e Islami Hind, Jamiat Ahl-e Hadees, All India Milli Council etc, condemned the recent beastly terror attacks in Mumbai. While paying tribute to those killed in the attacks, the Committee demanded a high-level transparent, unbiased

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and truthful enquiry into these attacks so that the real culprits might be brought to book soon and punished severely. The Committee calls upon the Muslims of the country to come forward to help the victims of the incident. The leaders of the Committee also requests Imams of mosques across the country to condemn the terror attacks in their Friday and Eid sermons. It also called on Muslim masses to celebrate Eid with simplicity this year. ■

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Insights

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

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Focus

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

Nellie: India’s Forgotten Massacre

BY HARSH MANDER lifetime is much too short to forget. It was November 26, 2008, the day that was to become etched in India’s history for the audacious and traumatic terrorist commando attack on the country’s commercial capital Mumbai. I happened to be on that day at a location as distant as possible from Mumbai — psychologically, politically and socially — at Nellie in Assam, the site of one of free India’s most brutal forgotten massacres in 1983. I had been invited by the survivors to sit with them as they recalled and commemorated the events that had unfolded in this distant impoverished corner of the country 25 years earlier. Journey into the past We gathered in the soft sunshine of early winter in an open courtyard. A crowd quickly gathered: the older men with checked lungis and beards could easily be distinguished as people of East Bengali Muslim origin. The women and younger men dressed like anyone from an Assamese village. There were the initial courtesies of traditional welcome, as they offered us customary white Assamese scarves with exquisite red embroidery. Senior officials of the State government who accompanied me had gently dissuaded me from the visit, questioning the wisdom of re-opening wounds of painful events of such a distant past. People have moved on long ago, they assured me. What purpose then would our visit serve? It would only revive memories that have long been buried. The same advice came from many nonofficial friends who worked in development organisations in the State. They added that the visit would stir issues that were too bitterly contested in the region. But the survivors persisted in their resolve that they wanted to be heard. It was impossible for me to refuse them.

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The Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008 has witnessed an upsurge of understandable public anger, because a partisan and weak State leaves each of us unsafe. But States have long failed abjectly and shamefully to protect ordinary citizens and uphold justice. The lives lost in Mumbai’s Taj Hotel are precious. But the lives extinguished in distant hamlets of Nellie — and indeed the streets of Delhi, Bhagalpur, Gujarat and Malegoan — are no less valuable. Enormous suffering On February 18, 1983, in the genocidal massacre organised in Nellie, just 40 km from Guwahati , 2,191 Muslim settlers originally from Bangladesh were slaughtered, leaving 370 children orphaned and their homes in 16 villages destroyed. As the survivors spoke one by one before our gathering a quarter century later, all of us who heard them — including officials, academics, social workers — were completely stunned, and shamed, by the enormity and immediacy of their suffering today, which retained an urgency as though they had only very recently suffered the unspeakable cruelties that they gave words to, not 25 years earlier. The bodies of many were twisted and deformed by inadequately treated injuries from the assaults by machetes and daggers; others pulled back their clothes to expose frightening scars of the attacks of a generation earlier. Hazara Khatun, with scars of a dagger attack on her face that she survived in 1983, sat on the ground before us and pointed to her empty lap. “I was cradling my child here”, she said in a low voice. “They chopped him into two, down the middle”. Another widow Alekjaan Biwi, was far less calm. Her body was twisted, and we could all see that she had lost her psychological equilibrium. Eleven members of her family were slaughtered in the massacre, and she acted out for us how the mob had attacked them, how she had cowered and hidden herself, how she was discovered and wounded, and how she survived even though scarred and deformed for life. “I have no one

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in the world,” she concluded quietly. Deluge of grief In his early thirties, Mohammed Monoruddin began to cry inconsolably as soon as he sat before us. “My brothers, sisters were all killed, hacked into pieces,” he recalled. “I was seven years old then. I saw my parents slaughtered in front of me. I saw another woman being killed and her child snatched from her

hands and thrown in fire. I wept in terror all day. The CRPF came in the evening and rescued me. Later we came to know that our house was torched. Nothing was left. All our belongings and stores of rice were gone in the fire. My elder brother, who was in Nagaon, brought me up. But I feel so lonely.” Many others spoke of their loneliness. Noon Nahar Begum was 10 years old, and when the

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killings started, she tried to run away but was attacked and badly wounded. She was hospitalised for two months, and her mother and four siblings were murdered. “They were butchered here in the place where we are standing today,” she said, adding: “I have found no peace of mind for the last 25 years. I need justice for my peace. Justice is important because it was such a terrible crime. I feel lonely and miss my family…” Babool Ahmad, a tailor, was two years old when he lost his parents. He was brought up by his grandparents, whereas his sisters were raised in an SOS village. And so the stories flowed, like a deluge of muddied waters of grief — long unaddressed and Cont. on page 18

Issues

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

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BY YOGINDER SIKAND up Muslims whom they had accused of as being them on Muslims and then seeking to galvanise Hindu ast month, the Rajasthan unit of the People’s ‘terrorists’, the UP police ‘wanted to show that they, support. He spoke about the large number of Muslim youths, wrongly accused of being terrorists, who Union for Civil Liberties, along with several too, were doing something.’ Nilabh Mishra, editor of the Outlook Hindi magazine, continue to languish in jails. Several incarcerated other human rights’ groups, organised a twoechoed somewhat the same sentiments. He accused Muslims, who, when found innocent by the courts and day public hearing in Jaipur on the theme, “State sections of the media for simply parroting the police released, do not even get an apology, let alone any Responses in the Name of Countering Terrorism and version of events in cases of terror attacks for which compensation for being picked up, imprisoned and even Religious Conversion”. It was attended by a large Muslims were invariably blamed, and remarked how the brutally tortured. For the rest of their lives these people number of activists from various parts of Rajasthan and mounting anti-Muslim prejudices spread by this section are tainted in the eyes of society, and often even their beyond. of the media was doing irreparable harm to interclose relatives want to have nothing to do with them for In his opening remarks, the noted social activist and community relations in the country and communalizing fear of being suspected by the police of being ‘terrorist’scholar, Ram Puniyani spoke about how communal vital pillars of the state machinery, including the police sympathisers. violence in India is now being rapidly transformed into and the judiciary. Noted Delhi-based columnist Girish Nikam voiced organised pogroms against Muslims in which key Senior Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan similar concerns. Reflecting on his own experience of sections of the state and the media are playing a major remarked about how he believed that ‘Hindutva having worked in the ‘mainstream’ media for several role. Condemning all forms of terror, including that years, he said that the attitude of large sections of the engaged in by some fringe Muslim media to the issue of terrorism was outfits, Puniyani opined that what ‘indefensible’, in particular their he called ‘Hindutva terrorism’ today relative silence on Hindutva terror threatens to take the form of fulland their sensational reporting of blown fascism, which, while Public tribunals serve a valuable purpose, enabling victims to cases of Muslims being accused ostensibly targeted against Muslims articulate their voices when these continue to go unheard in the of terrorism even in cases when no and Christians, actually aims at corridors of power firm evidence had been brought preserving the status quo in terms against them. This reflected what he said was a deepof caste/class relations and also in promoting global rooted sentiment held by many that Muslims were to be imperialist forces. Lamenting the silence of the media on presumed guilty until proven innocent. And, he added, ‘Hindutva terrorism’, he claimed that it was possible that any critique of this policy is often quickly branded as several other terror attacks that India has recently ‘anti-national’. witnessed other than those that occurred in Malegaon Others who testified at the tribunal included Kavita could also have been the handiwork of Hindutva groups. Srivastava, head of the Rajasthan unit of the PUCL, He stressed the importance of public tribunals as this Tej Kumar, an advocate who has taken up the case of one to articulate the voices of the victims of state terror some Rajasthani Muslim youth accused of as in a context when there was little hope for justice from terrorists, as well as several men and women from the courts and the state machinery. various parts of Rajasthan whose relatives continue Magsaysay Award-winner and social activist from to languish in jail and some others who had been Lucknow, Sandeep Pandey spoke at length about what arrested on false charges but were later released. he saw as the deliberate hounding of innocent Muslim Public tribunals like this one serve a valuable youths across the country wrongly accused by the police purpose, enabling victims to articulate their voices and intelligence agencies of being involved in acts of when these continue to go unheard in the corridors terror. He focused particularly on one case that he has of power. However, given the fact that, particularly sought to intervene in—that of a Muslim youth from in the wake of the recent Mumbai attacks, the issue Lucknow , Shahbaz Hussain, who continues to be in jail, of terrorism has assumed alarming proportions and accused of being behind the deadly bomb attacks that the role of fringe radical Islamist terror in fomenting ripped through Jaipur some months ago. Pandey and strife in India groups cannot be ignored, it is some of his colleagues had visited Shahbaz’s house and imperative that human rights groups take a broader were convinced, so he said, that he was actually innocent. He cited another instance where he had personally organizations in India enjoy almost unfettered freedom and more balanced perspective. While state terror intervened to help stop a fake encounter that had been to defy the law, to massacre people in their hundreds, and terror unleashed by Hindutva groups rightly planned by a police officer and an army colonel involving with no action being taken by the state against them.’ deserve to be condemned, for us to turn a blind eye a Kashmiri youth whom they had planned to shoot and And, despite this, he added, ‘they are referred to as to terror engaged by radical Islamist groups is not then falsely brand as a terrorist. This had been plotted patriots, not as terrorists, which is what they actually just unacceptable, unfair and unethical, but also, from soon after what Pandey called the ‘fake Batla House are.’ He pointed out that Hindutva forces are desperately the point of view of our joint struggle against all forms encounter’. The intention, he said, was probably to seeking to export what they call the ‘Gujarat model’ all of terror, which feed on each other, extremely counter‘prove’ that just as the police in other states were picking over the country by resorting to terror attacks, blaming productive. ■

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Jaipur Public Tribunal on Terror

Nellie: India’s Forgotten Massacre Cont. from page 17 denied — gushing from a breached dam. The forgotten massacre in Nellie in 1983 established a bloody trail of open State complicity in repeated traumatic bouts of ethnic cleansing and massacres both in Assam and in India. It was followed by similar State-enabled carnages, in Delhi in 1984, Bhagalpur in 1989, Mumbai in 1993 and climaxed in Gujarat in 2002. Series of incidents Assam in turn has seen a series of violent ethnic clashes between various oppressed communities, each bitterly and ferociously ranged against other ethnic groups which may be as dispossessed, if not more so. The accord brokered by government with militant Bodos in 1993

assured them autonomous control over regions where their population was in a majority. The government therefore itself laid the foundations for ethnic cleansing. Bengali Muslims were driven out of their settlements by murderous attacks and the torching of their homes in 1993, and this scenario was repeated for Santhal and Munda tribals (called Adivasis) — many of whom are descendants of tea garden labour imported by the British two centuries ago — in 1996. Thousands of them continue to languish today in camps, some for 15 years, as they are still terrified to return home. Assam remains a tinder box of ethnic hatred, with recent attacks on Bihari migrant labour, Jharkhand agitators in Guwahati, bomb explosions

and recent clashes between Bodos and Bengali Muslims this year, which left many dead and thousands in camps seething with hate. The worth of lives The government gave the survivors of Nellie, compensation for each death of as little as 5,000 rupees, contrasted for instance with Rs. 7 lakhs that have been paid to survivors of the Sikh carnage of a year later in 1984. Six hundred and eighty eight criminal cases were filed in connection with Nellie organised massacre and of these 310 cases were charge-sheeted. The remaining 378 cases were closed due to the police claim of “lack of evidence”. But all the 310 chargesheeted cases were dropped by the AGP government as part of the Assam Accord, therefore not a single person has even

had to face trial for the gruesome massacre. Some lives are clearly deemed by the State of being of little worth compared to others. The Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008 has witnessed an upsurge of understandable public anger, because a partisan and weak State leaves each of us unsafe. But States have long failed abjectly and shamefully to protect ordinary citizens and uphold justice. The lives lost in Mumbai’s Taj Hotel are precious. But the lives extinguished in distant hamlets of Nellie — and indeed the streets of Delhi, Bhagalpur, Gujarat and Malegoan — are no less valuable. A day must come when our rage and our compassion responds equally to each of these tragedies. We can be safe only by standing and caring together. ■

Muslims & Economy

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

Redefining Poverty BY A FAIZUR RAHMAN he government’s announcement of a fiscal stimulus package of approximately Rs 30,000 crore, including foregone tax revenues may not help the economy. A recent FICCI survey has warned that several manufacturing sectors may see production cuts of up to 50 per cent and job cuts of up to 30 per cent in coming months. In any case, if one goes by the new allocations, the stimulus package appears to be meant only for upper middle-class urban Indians, to bail out exporters and such sectors as jewellery manufacturing, housing and automobiles. The total lack of a humanistic social policy to improve the lot of the poverty-stricken majority of this country, as seen from the laissez-faire attitude adopted towards them, is shocking. The enormity of this institutional neglect can be gauged from the “Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector”, released by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) in August 2007. The report says 77 per cent of the population — 836 million people — subsists on less than Rs 20 per day per capita. Unfortunately, the stimulus package has nothing to offer these people. On the contrary, their numbers have been grossly understated to avoid tarnishing the “India Shining” image, and perhaps also to escape censure for not addressing the concerns of this vulnerable group. A study of the anachronistic methodology adopted by the government to calculate poverty line of India would expose this bias. According to the official definition, the poverty line is the monthly cost of a “basket of food” that gives 2,400 calories of nutrition per capita per day in rural areas and 2,100 calories per capita per day in urban areas. In 1973-74, the government fixed this line at Rs 49.09 and Rs 56.64 per capita per month for rural and urban areas respectively. These values were last revised in

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1999-2000 to Rs 327.56 and Rs 452.11. In other words, we are expected to believe that a person who earns Rs 328 a month in a village and Rs 453 a month in a city is not poor, as he is above the poverty line. One does not have be an award winning economist to realise how ridiculously low these estimates are. Astonishingly, these outdated values still form the basis of poverty calculations in our country. A case in point is the March 2007 report of the Planning Commission, which claimed that the number of people living below the poverty line has declined to 21.8 per cent from 26.1 per cent in 1999-2000. But the NCEUS report contradicts this contention. Therefore, in order to avoid such conflicting and misleading claims, the poverty line must be redefined for a realistic evaluation of the number of poor in our country. In this connection, the methodology used by Australia may be worth studying. The country takes into account even non-income indicators to calculate poverty and updates its poverty line every quarter. For instance, the Australian poverty line for the June Quarter 2008 inclusive of housing costs was $ 714.27 per week for a family comprising two adults, one of whom is working, and two dependent children. This was an increase of $ 7.08 over the poverty line for the previous quarter, March 2008. (Source: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research). Adopting a similar approach, Mohan Guruswamy and Ronald Joseph Abraham of the Centre for Policy

Alternatives, Delhi in a February 2006 report, “Redefining Poverty: A New Poverty line for a New India” presented a case for fixing the poverty line at about Rs 840 per capita per month after factoring in costs for nutrition (Rs 573), health (Rs 30), clothing (Rs 17), energy consumption (Rs 55), and miscellaneous expenditure (Rs 164). Even this figure of Rs 840, they said, would not fully reveal the true state of poverty in India because a person spending more than Rs 840 a month does not necessarily have access to all the fundamental needs of life such as education, health, nutritious food, clean water, clothing, sanitation, transport, housing, and access to national resources. But there seems to be no effort from the government to initiate targeted measures to eliminate poverty as proved by its apathy towards the Dalits and the Muslims who are the most “capability deprived” (to use Amartya Sen’s phrase) sections of our society as per the Sachar Committee Report.

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The total lack of a humanistic social policy to improve the lot of the poverty-stricken majority of this country, as seen from the laissez-faire attitude adopted towards them, is shocking.

For instance, in the 2008-09 Union budget the amount earmarked for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is Rs 7,762 crore, which is the sum of a direct allotment of Rs 3,966 crore and 20 per cent of Rs 18,983 crore from other schemes. This works out to just 1.03 per cent of Rs 7,50,884 crore, the estimated total budget expenditure this year. Muslims find themselves even more neglected as the finance minister could spare just Rs 1,235 crore for all minorities, which included allocations to the ministry of minority affairs (Rs 1,000 cr), post-matric scholarship (Rs 100 cr), National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (Rs 75 cr) and the

Maulana Azad Education Foundation (Rs 60 cr). At 70 per cent of the total minority population the Muslims’ share in Rs 1,235 crore may be taken at Rs 865 crore or 0.1 per cent of the total budget expenditure. So the Muslims get just 11 per cent of what has been given to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes despite being 55 per cent of SC-ST population (2001 census) and equally downtrodden. The bias is obvious. If this is the government’s attitude towards deprived communities, the chances of India staving off recession and becoming a global power are bleak indeed. (The writer can be reached at [email protected]) ■

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Life & Relationships Mohammed: After the first day when I went home, I did find a tremendous change in myself and the people who attended the workshop. The breakthrough I had was on the second day when I forgave everyone. I cannot wait to see the results of my daily life after the workshop. The workshop is brilliant and I recommend it for everyone. Better marketing has to be done. Seedat: I was playing blame game and was stuck in the box. The workshop opened my eyes and made me a better person in the eyes of my husband and children. Brought me closer to them. The workshop was very enjoyable. Jahanara: I had allowed myself to be stressed and not focused. After having breast cancer I had learnt to live in the moment and slowly as time passed I got caught up in living in my head. This workshop was a reminder and wake up call for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has been a special learning experience for me. I feel inspired and motivated. Zubeda: My life before the workshop was filled with daily questioning of why things happen the way they do. I was less calm and often worried about what may occur, even it has not happened. My major turning point in the workshop was finding spiritual upliftment and calmness. When we did the zikr, I felt at peace and everything around me disappeared. The workshop helped me realize my role in achieving happiness and success and life is what you make of it wherever you are. On the first day of the workshop, I did not quite get it, but by the third day, I began to realise a lot and I am grateful to Mr Sadathullah Khan for conducting this workshop. Alisha: Prior to the workshop, I was living in the past, bringing the past and not wanting to see the future because of what I experienced could be fear and failure! I have been married twice and divorced twice. In that 30 years I always thought why me? What did I do to deserve this? It was blaming and self pity etc. Even with the members of my family I always felt there were never there for me in helping me to bring up my two sons. Now after the workshop, I have realized it has been me. There is nothing wrong in me. I have realized that in life YOU can make the choice with the guidance from Allah. I must start living my life in the moment, I must learn to forgive and stop

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009 20 looked for a meaning to anything that happened around me. I always suffered asking questions about why me? Why now? Why this way? After the The “Discover Yourself Workshop” was conducted by A.W. Sadathullah workshop I have learnt to accept life and make free choices. It made Khan on 28, 29 and 30 November 2008 at Universal Sports Club, Harare, me realize where my beliefs, Zimbabwe. Here some of the participants share their experiences. morals and practices were coming from. I wish to correct Before, I was giving in to my them and choose words that will nafs, living as I pleased, not help me live the way Allah wants listening to others advice, me to live. This workshop really getting irritated on small things. helped me open my eyes to the Now, I see a bigger picture and blindness Satan had trapped me most importantly how to think in. I shall use the tools of the positively. I feel lighter inside, workshops to shut the Satan knowing that I can change my and take control of my life. I future and accept whatever Allah wish the workshop was for a blaming. determined to correct them. I will has given to me and be grateful little longer period as it takes Rashid: Before the members not let the whisper of Satan for it. longer time to realize and accept of my family had attended the guide me. I am sure that this Zaheer: I was blinded in the self deception and point of workshop in South Africa and I workshop will make a difference denial of the decisions and point views we have created in our saw a big change in them and so to my life. I want to organise of views in my life as I always lives. ■ I decided to attend. On the first the workshop in Mozambique day I could not understand what and we need to expand this in “DISCO VER YOURSELF” “DISCOVER it was all about and later Portuguese language. understood it. I witnessed that I 3-DAY WORKSHOP ON Faiza: Before the workshop, have been living my life in the my life was full of anger and Personality Development through Self-intorspection box, living in the past. Now I am (Based on Islamic Principles) jealousy. I used to blame others aware of it and I can change and The workshop aims to achieve self empowerment for my anger and discontent. live in the now, not judging, not through the transformation of one-self. After attending the workshop, I assuming. I used to bottle up “Now we need a revolution, not for changing others, but to change ourselves” things and now I know how to realised that all my problems are http://www.nanima.co.za/discoveryourself.html because of me and not others. I deal with it. In the first day of the workshop your anger disappears and you enter into a state of peace and tranquility. You feel free and light and your view of Tahera: The first day I did not realised that I must forget the life, people around you and the world transforms. see any changes. My husband, past because it affects my The next day you get rid off the burden of the past and the constrains the present and future. This my son and I attended. The past imposes on your view of life. You get access to live in the present and workshop is an awakening in my second day I saw a change in create a new future. You have the power, freedom and self-expression to take all of us. My son for the first life and it should be conducted any challenge that life throws at you and life is no longer a burden. Your view of life alters. You create a new you, surrendering to the will of Allah. You time hugged me and I felt he was frequently. Fatima: The workshop purify your heart and truly get connected with Almighty Allah. crying from deep inside himself. Third day you witness a whole new world around you by demolitioning helped me to listen to others. Now all of us talk with feelings (fana) your ego. You see life as simple with Truth prevailing and Falsehood Not to be judgmental. Learnt to for each other. I have a lot of perishing. You experience, love, joy, peace, happiness, contentment anger in me and I will over come care and share my experience and bliss, a gift Allah has given you to experience and share with others. Unless there is individual transformation there will be no Universal it. I find this workshop is related with others. To be forgiving. To see others for what they are. To Transformation. Now we need a revolution, not for changing others, to Islam completely. but to change ourselves Qaader: Within myself, I help my community in anyway I can and help me make the right feel that I have found exactly SRINAGAR what I have been searching for choices and decisions in life. FOR MEN AND WOMEN Amina: Earlier life was a long time. I can feel the change DATES: 19, 20 & 21 DECEMBER 2008 meaningless. I did not know in myself. God willing, I wish to VENUE: B.ED COLLEGE OF EDUCATION pursue with determination the what to do with my life. Now I M.A ROAD, SRINAGAR path that we have discovered feel that I can face challenges (Arrangements for heating the avenue already made) here. I have become conscious and I can handle any situation CONTACT FOR DETAILS AND REGISTRATION: of my small mistakes and I am more confidently and positively. Mr. Bakkal, Mobile No. 9419032956 (10am to 5pm) E-mail: [email protected] Mrs. F. Bukhari, Mobile No. 9419015411 (10am to 5pm) E-mail: [email protected]

Shut Out the Satan

WORKSHOPS IN JANUARY 2009

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QATAR DATES : 22,23 & 24th JANUARY 2009 CONTACT Mr. Ikram Thowfeek Email: [email protected] NORWAY DATES : Friday 6th February to Sunday 8th February 2009 ORGANISED BY : Islamic Womens Association, Stavanger Contact for details: Hussain Noor M. Email: : [email protected] Zerina Parker-Knapp, email: [email protected]

Workshop Designed and Conducted by: A.W. Sadathullah Khan B.Sc, B.E (Mech), Editor, Islamic Voice, Cell: 0091-9845158996 Email: [email protected]/ [email protected]

Book Review

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

REVIEWED BY: ARSHAD AMANULLAH “Bhai saheb! My village is completely Pakistan which is surrounded by India”. “What do you mean by India and Pakistan?”, I asked. Only Sheikhs and Syeds live in the village and on the periphery, there are settlements of Kunjras (Green-grocers), Qasais (Butchers), Jolhas (Weavers), Dhuniyas (Cotton-carders), Nais (Barbers),etc”, he replied. (An excerpt from the book, p: 453). The discourse (secular/ religious/ both) on the South Asian Muslims has been so ashraf-driven that either it hardly engages, in a pragmatic fashion, the issues of social equality as a tool to put an end to economic and cultural exclusions, or whenever it tries to address them (the issues of social equality), it does so with great rhetoric. Mohammad Iqbal’s verse “Ek Hi Saf Me Khade Ho Gaye Mahmud-o-Ayaz / Na Koi Banda Raha Na Koi Banda Nawaz,” very aptly exemplifies the extent of simplicity and rhetoric the ulama and the Islamists have reduced such a complicated question to. Another limitation which categorizes their narratives on the theme is that

Discourse on Discrimination Hindustan Mein Zaat-Paat Aur Musalman (Urdu) Author: Masood Alam Falahi Publisher: Al-Qazi, F-A/86, Abul Fazl Enclave, New Delhi 110025 Price:Rs.250/they do it to woo the ummat-ida’wah to embrace Islam, not to radicalize the behavioural aspect of the concept of equality among the believers. Being a narrative of an Islamist alim, though the book under-review also carries some of these limitations and biases, it offers fresh information on the theme and throws a host of questions to ruminate on. In the light of the insights obtained from years of ethnography on the caste demography of the Indian Muslims, the present volume problematizes the social equality project of textual Islam, especially when the latter negotiates with the strong local societal institutions. That process of theology manufacturing is marked by a constant reproduction of the local societal institutions and hence their perpetuations, is another motif of the book. What enhances its complexity is the academic and ideological

location of the author and his approach to the politics of jurisprudence production. To put the book in perspective, one needs to explain briefly the dominant discourse about discrimination and forms of social exclusion among Indian Muslims, before delving into the genealogy of the volume and the saga of its several rejections from the publishers. Apart from social intercourse, the caste-based discriminatory praxis among Muslims find expressions in at least five forms: khilafat, imamat, kufu/kafa’at, employment and education. Majority of the ulama consider khilafat a prerogative of the descendents of the Prophet while it is only ashrafs who jurisprudentially qualify for the imamat (to lead the prayer in the mosque). Further, the ulama deem the observance of ‘Kufu” mandatory for the islamicality of a marital alliance. Literally meaning eligible/suitable/equal, the kufu in its hermeneutical sense, stands for the following: four castes of the ashrafs (Syeds, Sheikhs, Mughals and Pathans) are generally considered suitable marriage partners for each other, making it a complete endogamous affair while the ajlaf (communities based on professions) can marry only among themselves, not the ashrafs. The arzals (the untouchables) form the socially and physically excluded lot of the Muslim society. Moreover, no Jadidul Islam (new converts to Islam) can marry a Qadeemul

Islam (a person whose family has been within the pale of Islam for more than a generation), due to the temporal distance which comes to characterize their association with Islam. The textual Islam (the Qur’an and the Hadiths) does not conceive social organisation of the Muslims in terms of these stratifications, however majority of the Indian ulama have been justifying the same in the jurisprudence, through interpretations of the Qur’anic verses which serve their purpose and also with the help of concocted ahadith. Due to several factors like socio-democratic programmes of the Constitution, secular character of the Indian polity, industrialization-led-intense process of urbanisation, etc, have reduced the occurrence of other discriminatory praxis, however, the institution of Kufu is still violently in practice. It has thus continued to come under criticism from the backward caste ulama time and again. In this regard, among others, Mufti Habibur Rahman Azmi’s monograph Ansaab Wa Kafa’at Ki Shar‘i Haisiyat and Maualana Abdul Hamid Nomani’s tract Masla-i-Kufu Aur Isha’at-i-Islam as critiques of the dominant narrative of the Kufu deserve mentioning here. Though Masud Falahi’s book comes to signify the most recent effort in this series of protest writings, it marks a departure from its predecessors in several ways. A graduate of Jamiatul Falah,

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Azamgarh, the central madrasa of Jama’at-i-Islami Hind, Masud’s has an insider’s take on Jama’at’s realpolitik and workculture. In fact, one of the important reasons which prompted him to write the book is the casteist behaviour of the cadres and office-bearers of the Jama’at. (P373). In addition to engaging the issue in normative fashion, he quotes instances from real life of the predominantly ashraf leadership of the Jama’at. “Personal histories, interviews, observations and incidents which the author has been a witness to”(P27-28), thus, constitute a major chunk of the book. On a much larger plane, he applies the same strategy of data-collection to the outstanding ulama of all denominations and prominent religious bodies of Indian Muslims. That is why potential of his book to critique the agenda and vision of the present Muslim religious establishment and Islamist leadership is simply unmatched. It is against this backdrop, one needs to understand why Jama’at-i-Islami Hind, after three years of dilly-dallying discovered that it could not publish Masud’s monograph and why an Ahl-i-Hadith publisher from the city of Maunath Bhanjan, Uttar Pradesh demanded to remove those portions of the book which offered insights about the castedriven writings of the Ahl-iHadith ulama and practical politics of the present establishment of Markazi Jami’at Ahl-i-Hadith Hind. Interestingly enough, before he found his publisher, Jamia Asaria Darul Hadith, an Ahl-i-Hadith madrasa of Maunath Bhanjan, had started a serial reproduction of some portions from the book in each issue of its monthly magazine Aasar-i-Jadid (from February 2007). Divided into ten chapters, the timeline of Masud’s narrative starts with the Aryan invasion on India and comes down to the current period. His hypotheses is that the Muslim intellectuals (religious/secular), instead of discouraging the caste-based discrimination among the Indian Muslims, have consciously or unconsciously projected it as an Islamic concept and tinkered with the classical Islamic texts to lend it a jurisprudential sanction. Consequently, it has caused an irreparable damage to the Cont. on page 27

Qur’an Speaks to You

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

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In the name of Allah the Merciful the Beneficent

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elate to them in all truth the story of the two sons of Adam: how each offered a sacrifice and the offer of the one was accepted while that of the other was not. (The latter) said: “I will surely kill you.” (The other) replied: “Allah accepts only from the righteous. Even if you lay your hand on me to kill me, I shall not lift my hand to kill you: for I fear Allah, the lord of all worlds. I would rather, you should add your sin against me to your other sins, and thus you will be destined to the fire; for this is the just retribution of the wrongdoers.” His evil soul drove him to kill his brother: he murdered him and thus he became one of the lost. Allah then sent a raven which scratched the

earth to show him how to bury the naked corpse of his brother. He cried out: “ Woe to me! Am I too weak to do what this raven has done and so bury my brother’s naked corpse.” He was then overwhelmed by remorse. Because of this, we decreed to the children of Israel that whoever kills a human being, for anything other than in punishment of murder or for spreading corruption on earth, it shall be as though he killed all mankind. And that who ever saves a human life , it shall be as though he has saved all man kind. Our messengers brought them clear proofs (on the truth), but despite all this, many of them continue to commit excesses on earth. (The Repast, “Al-Maidah:” 5; 27-32)

Killing One Life or Killing Humanity COMMENTARY BY SAYYID QUTB TRANSLATED BY ADIL SALAHI n the first part of this story of the two sons of Adam, one of them threatened to kill the other out of blind envy, after his own offering was not accepted while that of his brother was. His threats were met by a calm response of his brother who made it clear to him that he would not lift his hand to kill him in any situation because he feared Allah. He added a word of warning telling him that should he kill him, he would add a new sin to his old one and incur a double punishment in the life to come. He depicted to him how loathsome to him was the very thought of committing murder in the hope that he would help him thus to resist the evil thoughts towards a peaceful brother. He explained to him that the sinful burden of a murder crime was too heavy that he would do well to avoid it in order not to end up with a double punishment. The only way to rid himself of it was to fear Allah. In his persuasion, he went as far as any man could go. But the example of an evil man cannot be properly depicted until we know what sort of response he made in such a persuasion: “His evil soul drove him to kill his brother; he murdered him and thus he became one of the lost” After all these admonition and persuasion, in a perfectly peaceful and gentle approach, the evil soul prevailed and crime was committed. His evil soul was able to over-ride every hindrance and made him less resistant to the thought of killing. Thus he killed his own brother, only to be doomed: “Thus he became one of the lost.” He lost all as he brought himself into ruin, and lost his brother who should have been his friend and support. He also lost his world, since a murderer can never be

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happy in life. Most certainly he lost his future life as he added his new sin to his earlier ones. The ghastliness of his crime was made to appear to him in its most physical shape. The dead corpse of his brother started to rot and its nakedness became intolerable. Murderer as he was, he was soon made to realize his powerlessness as he did not know how to conceal the nakedness of his brother’s corpse. He was weaker than a raven among birds: “Allah then sent a raven which scratched the earth to show him how to bury the naked corpse of his brother. He cried out: “Woe to me, I am too weak to do what this raven has done and so bury my brother’s naked corpse. He was than overwhelmed by remorse.” Some reports suggest that there were two ravens and one of them killed the other. Other reports suggest the that the raven found a dead raven or brought the dead one with him and started to scratch the earth and then buried the dead one. The murderer expressed his feelings in the way reported in the Quran and did like what he saw the raven do. It is clear that the murderer had never seen a dead man being buried. Otherwise he would have buried his brother. This may have been because the murdered brother was the first of Adam’s children to die on earth or may be because the killer was still young and had never seen a burial before. Either case is probable. It also appears

that this remorse was not one of repentance. Otherwise, Allah would have accepted it from him. It was the sort of remorse which comes with the realization that one’s action is futile and leads to nothing but trouble. It may be that the burial of the dead raven by his brother is something that ravens do as some people suggest, it may also be something super natural which Allah wanted to show to the killer at that particular time. To us, both cases are the same. The Creator Who gives every species of His creation its nature and habits can accomplish whatever He wills through anyone of His creatures. His power is merely indicated by either course. The surah then makes use of the profound effect of relating the story in this particular manner in order to enhance the feeling which gives a positive response to the legislation enacted to achieve the dual purpose of weakening the motive to commit a murder and to establish the just punishment for such a crime whenever it is done: “Because of this, we decreed for the children of Israel that whoever kills a human being, for anything other than in punishment of murder or for spreading corruption on earth, it shall be as though he had killed all mankind.” This type of person does exist and aggression is

committed against peaceful and good-natured people who harbor neither grudge nor illfeeling towards others. A reminder and a warning may achieve nothing with those who have an evil nature. Adopting a peaceful attitude may not be sufficient to prevent aggression. For all this, the ghastly crime of killing one person is considered so grave and so sordid that it is equated with the crime of killing all mankind. On the other hand, efforts to prevent killing and to spare the life of one person is considered a great action, equal to saving all mankind. The law given to the children of Israel included this principle which equates the life of any human being with every life. The right to live is applicable to all. Hence, killing one person is an aggression against the right to live which is common to all. It should be clarified here that this rule applies to the people in the land of Islam, whether Muslims or not, as long as they are living under the protection of the Islamic authority. As for those who are in the land which is hostile to Islam, neither their lives nor their properties are protected unless they have concluded a

peace treaty with the land of Islam. This legislative rule should be well remembered. We should also remember that the land of Islam is that in which the rule of Islam prevails and the Islamic law is implemented. Allah has decreed this principle for the children of Israel, because at that time, they were the recipients of divine revelation and as such, they represented the land of Islam as long as they implemented the law of the Torah in its fullness, without any distortion. But the children of Israel exceeded their limits after Allah’s messengers came to them with clear proofs of the truth. Since the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him), numerous among them are those who commit excesses of all sorts. The Quran records against them these excesses as well as the fact that they have no argument to justify their errors after Allah’s messengers have come to them: “Our messengers brought them clear proofs (of the truth) but despite all this, many of them continue to commit excesses on earth.” What excess is greater than distorting or ignoring Allah’s law? ■

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Hadith

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very Muslim knows that Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) provides the best example for us to follow. Whatever he did or said, should be followed by us, because following the Prophet’s example is a duty of every Muslim and ensure rewards for him or her on the day of Judgement. Moreover the Prophet teaches us only what is good for us and

The Prophet never made a supplication against a community of disbelievers. When he went to Taif seeking support for his cause, he was given a very hostile reception. community of disbelievers. When he went to Taif seeking support for his cause, he was given a very hostile reception. The chief of Thaqeef induced their teenagers, servants and

The same applies in the case of the tribe of Daws when they rejected his message. The story of the efforts to bring Daws round to accept Islam is very interesting. A man from Daws

wish to see the Prophet or listen to what he said. It so happened later that the Prophet went to pray at the Kaaba when AtTufail was there. At first, Al-

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tribe which was fortified, he told his wife and his father that he would have nothing to do with them unless they accepted Islam. Both became Muslims without hesitation. At-Tufail then started to call on his tribesmen to become Muslims. At a subsequent visit to Makkah, At-Tufail noticed that the Prophet was facing great

Always a Prayer for something Good for human life. He was the man who attained perfection with Allah’s help. We often make supplication for the achievement of certain objectives in the life to come or in this life. Numerous are the affairs of this life for which we pray to Allah to accomplish our purpose. We make a supplication to have an increase in wealth a better income, a good job, a comfortable life, passing exams, recovery from illness, etc. All such purposes are legitimate. We cannot pray to Allah to enable us to do something he has forbidden. It is unthinkable that one makes a supplication to Allah to help him win in gambling, because gambling is forbidden in Islam. Yet; some people do that in ignorance. It is also forbidden to pray to Allah to cause harm to someone else, unless it is a supplication by a person who has been at the receiving end of oppression or injustice. The Prophet has warned us against a supplication by someone to whom injustice has been caused at our hands. This is in essence a warning against injustice. It is an exception Allah makes to such a person because he answers his supplication against his oppressor. We should not read answering such a prayer as causing harm to someone, but we should take it as the establishment of justice. The Prophet had no personal grudge against people They were confirmed enemies of Islam who treated Muslims very badly and persecuted those Muslims who were under their control. He prayed against a few individuals who spared no efforts in scheming against Islam. Such a supplication against the opponents of the cause of Islam is perfectly legitimate. Moreover, the Prophet never made a supplication against a

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slaves to chase him out, stoning him as he walked, until both his feet were bleeding. As he sat down to rest after walking some distance away from the city, Allah sent him the angel in control of mountains who told him that he was at his service. If he wished, he would make the mountains collapse over them or make the earth swallow them. The Prophet refused any such suggestion, saying: “I hope that Allah will bring out of their offspring people who worship Him alone.”

called At-Tufail ibn Amr once came to Makkah to visit the Kaaba. That was at the time when the Prophet had only recently been preaching the message of Islam in public. Some people of Quraish met At-Tufail and warned him against listening to the Prophet saying that he was a sorcerer who said things which caused discord between a man and his wife, or a man and his children and tribe. He was largely influenced by what they told, to the extent that he did not

Tufail tried to move away. Then he thought that he was a reasonable man who understood poetry and could distinguish fine speech from harmful one. What he overheard the Prophet say in his prayer appealed to him. Therefore, when the Prophet finished and went to his home, At-Tufail followed him and knocked at his door. He asked him about what he preached and the Prophet explained the message of Islam. He soon became a Muslim. When At-Tufail went to his

hardship because of the hostility of his people. He suggested to him to move out to Daws, where he would have the benefit of the fort there and would have the tribe of Daws defending him. The prophet preferred to stay in Makkah. Apparently, the main reason for the Prophet’s refusal was the fact that Islam had not made much ground there and the number of Muslims in Daws was still small. This is clear from the fact that in yet another visit to Makkah, At-Tufail ibn Amr mentioned to the Prophet that his efforts were not achieving any great success. At-Tufail said: “Messenger of Allah, Daws have disobeyed Allah and rejected your message. Pray Allah to punish them.” The Prophet turned towards the Kaaba and lifted his arms as he would in supplication. Most people thought that the Prophet would pray against the tribe of Daws. The Prophet, however, said: “My Lord, guide the tribe of Daws to the truth and let them come over to Islam.” (Related by Al-Bukhari and Muslim). At-Tufail continued his efforts with his tribe and was able to make better headway after the Prophet’s supplication. At the time when the Prophet fought in the battle of Khaibar against the Jews, At-Tufail brought 80 men of his tribe to join the Muslim army. When Makkah fell to the Prophet two years later, At-Tufail suggested to him that he, i.e, At-Tufail be sent to the idol named Thul Kafayn which was worshipped by Amr ibn Hummamah, to burn it. The Prophet sanctioned that and At-Tufail burnt that idol which was a symbol of polytheism in Arabia. On the other hand, the Prophet never hesitated to make supplication on behalf of any individual who requested him to do that or whom he felt needed such a supplication. ■

Our Dialogue

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

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Extremists: Between Motivations and Justifications

Question: How can Islamic extremists think they can get into heaven by murdering innocent people when there is no justification in the Qur’an for doing so.Their motives seem to be more about hatred than the love of God, as they seem more motivated by what God can give them in paradise, as opposed to any love of God. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, for example, seem to think they can kill whoever they want by saying “God is Great” while they murder people, which they imagine absolves them of any wrongdoing. (Dieter-Germany) COUNSELOR: SHAHUL HAMEED Answer: Salam, Dieter. Thank you for your question. Murdering Innocents = Murdering Humanity. First of all, I would like to emphasize the Islamic teaching that murdering an innocent human is like murdering the whole of humanity. You can read the meaning of the following verse in the Qur’an: *{If anyone slays a human being — unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading corruption on earth —, it shall be as though he had slain all humankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all humankind}* (Al-Ma’idah 5:32) Also take note of the Qur’anic command: *{Let there be no compulsion in religion}* (Al-Baqarah 2:256) which means that no force should be used to make a person follow the dictates of religion. This means that no one can force anyone else to become a Muslim or follow a certain religion, as faith concerns the heart. Fighting for Self-Defense and Justice But the above verses do not preclude fighting in self-defense or fighting for justice. In fact, God in the glorious Qur’an permits such

fighting as a last option, when all other avenues are closed: *{Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loves not transgressors. And fight them wherever you catch them and turn them out from where they have turned you out, for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter}* (Al-Baqarah 2:190191). And again, this verse stresses that permission is given for those who are being oppressed to fight their oppressors: *{To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;— and verily, God is most powerful for their aid;— (They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,— (for no cause) except that they say, “our Lord is God.” Did not God check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of God is commemorated in abundant measure. God will certainly aid those who aid His (cause);- for verily God is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will).}* (Al-Hajj 22:39-40) The above verses do not lend

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any support to extremism or terrorism. And no Muslim can believe that the killing of innocent humans can earn rewards in Heaven, as such killings are categorically prohibited in Islam. What is more, justice is one of the most important values (if not the most important value) the Qur’an wishes its adherents to cherish and honor: *{O you who believe, stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God, even as against yourselves or your parents or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: For God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you swerve, and if you distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily God is wellacquainted with all that you do.}* (An-Nisaa’ 4:135) And again we read what means: *{O you who believe, stand out firmly for God as witnesses to justice; and let not the hatred of a people cause you to swerve from justice; be just; that is the closest to piety.}* (Al-Ma’idah 5:8) These verses mean that it is the duty of Muslims to do their utmost to see that justice is done under all circumstances, no matter what the cost is. Justice should be done even to the enemies who fight Muslims or even if they have to act against the interests of their own close relatives or friends. Blaming Islam for the Actions of Muslims Muslims should never act out of narrow partisanship or out of selfish motives, because God says that doing justice is the closest action to actual piety to Him. Muslims are persons who should live by the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and they should never ever try to flout the explicit commands of God in the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet (peace be upon him). For the same reason, we cannot blame Islam for the actions of certain people that contravene Islamic precepts any more than we can blame Christianity, for instance, for the misdeeds of certain Christians in derogation of the teachings of that religion.

A Political look at today’s Conflicts Despite the foregoing, why do some people in the Muslim world reportedly resort to the use of violence? Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq can serve as good examples. Some media reports and presentations of events in areas of conflict are biased and slanted to such an extent that we do not get a correct picture of what is happening. Modern wars are fought on various battlefronts, not least on the media front. Embedded journalists cannot know the war from the other side, nor can they report it objectively, even if they know the truth. World media is controlled by the rich and powerful countries of the world, and it is only natural that their interests are safeguarded in the featuring of news stories. Hype, slant, and spin are the order of the day in the media world. You have mentioned “AlQaeda in Iraq.” Just think for a moment: Couldn’t this be a label invented by biased media outlets to discredit the Iraqi resistance against the occupation? If the resistance fighters are called “AlQaeda,” immediately their cause is blacked out, and they are taken for terrorists who are bent on “murdering innocent Americans”! People who used to be victims of Saddam Hussein are ruthlessly bombarded with depleted uranium bombs and cluster bombs to implement “democracy.” It is interesting to see how US forces in Iraq are using Saddam’s own Abu Ghraib for this “purpose.” Any groups who want to fight against this so-called preemptive invasion are depicted as terrorists who are “motivated by what God can give them in paradise.” This means that they are not fighting the invaders and occupiers, but they simply wish to get rewards in the Islamic Paradise, eager to commit suicide in the process! Very few people seem to notice the terrible hypocrisy and double standards followed by the leaders of “civilized world.”

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They present Islam as “Islamic fascism” or “terrorist Islam” in order to push their imperialist agenda. And the real causes of the conflicts are blurred out. This is the tragedy of the present day world, which ignores the terrible massacre of over 600,000 Iraqis or the systematic genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Indeed, Islam is a religion like Judaism and Christianity. It is the third of the three Abrahamic religions. Islam teaches its followers to respect all the prophets mentioned in the Bible, including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. It teaches that there is only One God, Who is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe — the AllMerciful, All-Just. And Islam holds as holy all the precepts of mercy, kindness, justice, and truth preached by all the Prophets of God. An American writer wrote about the US attack on Iraq and its “impact” on the Americans: I noticed no signs of grief in our supermarkets on the days when children’s arms were being blown off, not even the day the Anglo-American forces marched into Baghdad, killing thousands of Iraqi men, women and children all on the same day, the vastness of the killing shocking our own soldiers who were THERE without a CNN filter. ... I could see laughing people hauling bags and bags of nitrate-jammed, high-fat, processed foods out to their cars … And a further look too often cemented the link. There it would be, on the bumper: God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. (Thomas, Lisa Walsh. The Isaiah Crowd: How Their NeoChristianity is Killing Us. 4 June 2003. Counterpunch.org. Accessed 27 May 2007.) When Religion becomes a Victim Sometimes religion becomes a cover for committing atrocities. If the religion of Jesus Christ is not to be blamed for the greed and sadism of certain Christians, how can Islam be in the dock for the political struggles of liberation that take place in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Palestine? (www.islamonline.net) ■

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Soul Talk

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

BY DR. SYED LIAQATH PEERAN his is an old adage about friendship. Friendship is not mere casual contact or relationship. It is a deep relationship and a bond thickened through true feelings of give and take which brings joy and happiness in the relationship of two or more persons. Among friends there is no grouse or complaints and neither they carry any heavy feelings or a baggage. The hearts open up to each other and genuine feelings of

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Friends share their deep secrets and between them, it is closely guarded and friends do not betray the trust and confidence in each other. Friends rescue each other in troubled times and help each other to cross the barriers and bridges. Friendship is blessed and the proverbial friendship is of our holy Prophet(Pbuh) with his companions, particularly with his foremost companions, those of Hazrath Abubakar Siddique(RA), Hazrath Omar Farooq(RA), Hazrath Usman(RA) and Hazrath Ali (RA).

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You look for friends under light and shade, to share joys, mirth and gaiety. To seek comfort, solace and happiness. To share woes and enrich hopes. To stir the ship of hope and happiness to safe shores. Friendship renews bonds to kindle warmth, which is hidden in nature’s breast. It instills in mind strength of iron, to unfold thrill, to trickle sweet dreams, to reach the zenith of inner peace. Divinity sparkles in friendship. One of the attributes of Allah is ‘Wali’. Allah is a friend

Friend in Need is a Friend in Deed Friendship is blessed and the proverbial friendship is of our holy Prophet(Pbuh) with his companions. concern and well being is carried by friends. The relationship is gentle, light hearted and between them there is laughter and true concern for each other. Truth prevails between them. There is no cover up, camouflage or trickery. There is give and take and friends do not stand on formalities. The relationship is more for gain than any loss between them. They mutually respect each others feelings. The relationship is more than brotherly.

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Friendship is like a white lily, its fragrance is sweet like honey; lasting till times endless sight. Flowing smoothly like a river, without asking for any material gain and wealth in return. Companions have in their bosom love aplenty and Sun’s generosity, shining on them, the tranquility of moon and vastness of an ocean for clarity. Friendship enriches the mind and the soul.

SENIOR CITIZEN

of sincere persons, who surrender to Him with all humility and put all their trust in Him. Thus friendship purifies the mind, enlightens the soul and lightens the burden of craving. The burning greed vanishes from the heart, raising goodness to a Divine Path. (The writer is Editor of ‘Sufi World’ He can be reached at [email protected]. Please visit www.internationalsuficentre.org) ■

Update

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

New Development in Islamic Studies in India

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For the first time in India, distance-education learners can now do a regular course in Islamic Studies. BY A STAFF WRITER or the first time in India , distance-education learners can now do a regular course in Islamic Studies. This three year-programme is being offered by the Hyderabadbased Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MAANU). Launched in 2007, the course is one of the eight optional subjects that students enrolled in the three-year Bachelor’s degree programme in the Urdu medium through distancelearning can opt for. Students must select three out of these eight optionals, in addition to compulsory English. Maulana Fahim Akhtar Nadvi, a well-known Islamic scholar, heads the Islamic Studies programme at MANUU’s Distance Education Department. Author of several books, mainly on contemporary developments in Islamic jurisprudence, he holds a doctorate from the Islamic Studies Department at the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi , and has worked for over a decade in as a Mufti and in-charge of the Academic Section of the New Delhi-based Islamic Fiqh

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Academy. ‘MANUU’s Bachelor’s level distance learning programme has some 1,50,000 students, of which some 5000 have opted for Islamic Studies as one of their three optional papers’, Nadvi explains. ‘Almost half of our students are females, many of whom are unable, for various reasons, to attend regular colleges, and so can study through our programme while being at home’, he says. Admission is open to anyone who knows how to read and write Urdu, no matter what his or her educational qualifications, provided the candidate passes an entrance examination. To make the programme even more widely accessible and convenient,

students are allowed to take up to six years to finish the Bachelor’s degree course. Faced with the lack of suitable textbooks for the course, Nadvi and a team of colleagues have prepared special texts in Urdu, five of which have been published so far. Work on the third year BA texts in Islamic Studies is now under way. ‘Unlike many texts used in most madrasas, these seek to provide a historical perspective and also reflect on contemporary issues. They also avoid the sharp sectarianism and heated polemics that is characteristic of many books taught in traditional madrasas, so that they appeal to Muslims of different sects’, Nadvi says. ‘The books provide a general overview of the different sects, not in a polemical mode, but, rather, in such a way as to present them as their own adherents themselves under-stand them.’ The texts have been prepared by a professional and wellqualified team, with separate sections being commissioned from renowned Islamic scholars across the country. These include Professor Akhtar ul-Wasey, head of the Department of Islamic

Salath Timings for Bangalore Month Date Jan. 01 03 05 07 09 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 !

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The Latitude of Bangalore is 13 North and the Longitude is 77 36' East. Dr. Syed Abdul Zahir M.S., Astronomer o

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Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, Maulana Waris Mazhari, editor of the monthly Tarjuman Dar ul-Ulum, the official organ of the Deoband Madrasa Graduates’ Assoc-iation, the noted Islamic scholar Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rehmani from Hyderabad, Professor Naim ur-Rehman Faruqi, head of the History Dep-artment, Allahabad University, Professor Zafar Ahmad Nizami, former head of the Department of Political Science at the Jamia Millia Islamia and Professor Shahid Ali Abbasi, head of the Department of Islamic Studies at Hyderabad’s Osmania Unive-rsity. Nadvi explains how the programme functions. Text books are sent out to the students by post, and they are made to write two assignments a year for which are then graded. In addition, they appear in an annual examination, which is held in some 140 centres of the MANUU located across India . A new centre has come up in Jeddah and plans are afoot to establish another one in London as well. With the help of the MANUU’s Instructional Media Centre, Nadvi’s department is in the process of preparing audiovisual material for Islamic Studies students. So far, it has produced ten DVDs, each of a half hour duration, for the Islamic Studies

programme. These have been relayed on Doordarshan’s Urdu channel, and students will soon be able to view them in MANUU’s study centres, which will be equipped with computers and televisions. Plans are also afoot to launch a video conferencing educational programme for students of Islamic Studies, in addition to the other subjects that MANUU’s Distance Education Department offers. Nadvi says that he hopes to be able to devise an MA programme in Islamic Studies through the distance education mode that will start probably two years hence. ‘This will be of immense value to those who want to study Islam but are unable to do so in the few universities in the country that have Islamic Studies Departments’, he adds. For more details, contact Dr. Fahim Akhtar Nadvi on [email protected] ■

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Special Report

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

Discourse on Discrimination Cont. from page 21 process of proselytization of Islam in the country. Having realised the gravity of circumstances, some contemporary ulama and intellectuals, in their individual capacity, tried to challenge the islamicality of the caste discrimination. India has yet to witness a movement which has had at the core of its programme: struggle against castediscriminations among Muslims. Masud sees the caste-system of the Muslims as a Brahmanical Conspiracy to Indianise Islam. (Islam Ka Bharatiyakaran) (P109). This formulation presupposes an egalitarian Muslim society without any element of social exclusion. It also assumes that all of the Indian Muslims at a certain point of history came from outside this land. Moreover, this reading of the nature and genealogy of the caste praxis among Muslims relegates its association with the power politics within the Muslims to the oblivion. This is a fallacious argument to say the least. As a logical extension of the Brahmanical Conspiracy Theory, comes Masud’s fascination with the Pollution Theory. The latter posits a binary opposition of the Arabs vs Ajams (Non-Arabs) where Arabs get credit for all merits of Islam/ Muslims while Ajams stand convicted for all demerits that crept in the Muslim society. For example, he considers all those Arab invaders who came to India and established their government in the coastal regions of Sindh, as Khalis Musalman (Pure Muslims) and personification of “Islamic egalitarianism”.(P114). What may really come as a shocking discovery to a reader of the book is the following line by Khwaja Syed Hasan Nizami: “Though there is a provision for equality within Islam, Allah has created Julahas to serve the higher caste groups”. Sufism is regarded as the most liberal expression of the proselytizing Islam which has done its best to accommodate local traditions, with due respect to their autonomy, within the master-narrative of Islam. Sufism in India thus, due to its

accommodative character, does not only reproduce the social biases, but reinforces them as well, as is evident from the advocacy of a form of social exclusion by one of the doyens of the Sufi traditions in India. In Masud’s narrative-design, theological insights enrich the findings of social scientists so that a wider picture of the dynamics of the caste praxis in the Muslim society can emerge. His borrowings from Ali Anwar, Imtiaz Ahmad, Aijaz Ali, V.T.Rajashekhar, etc, are not just reproductions or para-phrasings, he differed from them or critiqued them on several occasions. Moreover, he also shows occasionally the upfront confrontation between the ulama and the secular intelligentsia. While surveying a couple of apex Muslim organisations of contemporary India, Masud finds out that despite their claim to be “Islamic” in their social behaviour, the caste has come to categorize their practical politics in a very overt style. As an insider to the Jama’at-i-Islami Hind, he informs that it has been a hostage in the hands of some ashrafs who are extremely castiest in their social outlook (P392). Likewise, content of “Compendium of Islamic Laws”, a volume compiled and published by All India Muslim Personal Law Board recently, betrays an effort on its part to project Kufu and other manifestations of the caste discrimination as intrinsic sections of Muslim theology. The other side of the coin is that this volume is full of passages and references of jurisprudential sources, but it does not have citations from the classical texts of Islam (P410). In short, Masud’s first book makes an interesting reading on the issue of the caste discriminations. One may differ from him on several points he makes and conclusions he draws, but the disagreement neither undermines the utility of the tons of information he provides for the future scholars nor does it overshadow the relevance of the questions he raises in the book. (Arshad Amanullah can be reached at [email protected]) ■

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Near Musjid Ul Abrar, Sirvodem, Margao, Goa - 403601. Ph: 9822163132 / 2734442

IN JHARKHAND Mustafa Hussain, Mohalla Park, At PO, Hazaribagh - 825301

No.4, Broadway Road, Bangalore-51. Ph: 25544510

ISLAMIC BOOK CENTRE Jamia Complex, N.R.Road, Bangalore - 560002 Ph: 25928281

HONESTY STORE 150, 30th Cross, 4th T Block, 26th Main, Jayanagar, Bangalore-41

GEETHA NEWS AGENCY No.1, R.V.Road, South End Circle, Basavanagudi, Bangalore-560004. Ph: 25922374

S.M.ADAM NEWS AGENCY Opp: Frazer Town Post Office, Bangalore-05. Cell: 9343728824

S.R.ENTERPRISES No.4, D.C.Compound, K.G. Road, Bangalore-9. Cell: 9448404570

S.J.BAKERY & STORE, Imamia Manzil No.173/F, South Cross Street, Neelasandra, Bangalore-47. Cell: 9342812015

SHABARI (Magazine & News Paper) #280, M.B.S.Building, H.Siddiah Road, Wilson Garden, Bangalore - 27

IN SRINAGAR M/S. Abdullah News Agency Lalchowk, 1st Bridge, Srinagar - 190001. Ph: 2472621.

IN CHENNAI

IN PUNE

M/S. Quality Book Centre, Quality Shopping Complex. No. 31/2, Triplicane High Road,Chennai - 600005. Ph: 28527118

Miss. Naseem A. Omer, C/O. Vogue Furnishers, No. 313, M.G. Road, Pune - 411001. Ph: 26131160

Per copy Rs.15 Annual Subscription Rs.150

M/S. Ravi Agencies Anisur Zaman (News Paper Agent), Agia Road, Nayapara, Galpara - 783101. ASSAM

IN ASSAM

IN G U WA H AT I (Assam) Mr. S.K. Gani Ahmed

Kamarpatty, Musjid Lane,Pan Bazaar, Guwahati - 981001

IN MYSORE 1. Mr. Syed Abdul Basheer No. 137, 1st Stage, 3rd Cross, Rajendra Nagar, Kesere, Mysore - 570007. Ph: 0821 - 6556432 2. M/S. Hilal Book Centre No. 42/6, B.N. Street, Durrani Building, Mysore - 570021. Ph: 0821 - 2448806

IN NEW DELHI Nasheman, C-111, Lane 9 Okla Vihar, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi - 110025. Mob.: 0-9891073635

IN KOLKATA Islamic Bookstore - Mr. Zafar 66A Park Street, kolkata - 700017. Tajammul Hussain Khan, 120 Lower Chitpur Road, Kolkata - 73 Dr. Shabbir Ahmed, P16, Narkel Danga Main Road, Kolkata-11

IN SINGAPORE M.A. Abubakar Marikar 218, South Bridge Road, Masjid Jamae Chulia, Singapore - 058767. Ph.: 62214165

Matrimonial

ISLAMIC VOICE, JANUARY 2009

28

WANTED BRIDEGROOM

WANTED BRIDE

MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENT Remit Rs. 300 for each insertion Kindly send the typed matter in bold letters not exceeding 30 words. Each additional word will be charged at Rs. 5/- Box No. Advt. to Add Rs.50/extra. Matter should reach ISLAMIC VOICE on or before 20th of the month. State clearly that the payment (M.O./D.D) is towards Matrimonial Advertisement, Cheque / D.D should be drawn in favour of ISLAMIC VOICE. Out station cheques to Add Rs.30/- as bank charges. Please provide your email address as Matrimonial Advertisements will also be on our website www.islamicvoice.com Advertisers should send us accurate facts. Only grammatical errors will be corrected by the Advt. Dept.

Arafat Marriage Link

‘A CONDENSATION’

Best Alliance for MBBS / MD / ME / BE / MS / MCA / MBA / MSC.Phil / B.Ed / B.Sc / BL / M.Tech & any other Degree from India & Abroad. Also for professionals and business class peoples. Contact: Vazeer Ahmed Ph: 22132808 22132808. Cell: 94483 34317 / 99019 69497 #26/2, 4th Main, Chinnaya Palya, Opp. Mico Factory, Near Masjid-e-Ala, Bangalore - 560025 E-mail: [email protected]

WANTED BRIDE & BRIDE GROOM

Sachar Committee Report It says onus for improvement of Muslims is on themselves and on no one else. It is an essential need for all NGOs, organisations and concerned individuals. Pages 65, Price Rs. 25 including postage. Send M.O in favour of Islamic Voice, #3/1, Palmgrove Road, Victoria Layout, Bangalore - 560 047. Ph.: 25544483.

STAR SHAADI BUREAU

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