Indian Muslim 'Leadership' and role of ulema in ghettoisation of Muslims
 

Aijaz Ilmi on Indian Muslim 'Leadership' and role of ulema in ghettoisation of Muslims
Q: To return to the question of the maulvis, it is argued that they are an impediment to the spread of modern education among Muslims. Do you agree?

 A: Yes, almost entirely. Many ulema, explicitly or otherwise, oppose the spread of modern ideas. They act as an impediment to the emergence of a progressive social consciousness.  They fear this will undermine their hegemony. They have never taken any interest in wider social, economic or governance issues, or in helping Muslims be part of the mainstream. Nor have they encouraged Muslims in that direction. On the contrary, they have only further contributed to the ghettoisation of the Muslims. So, I would say, the ulema are equally, if not more, responsible for Muslim backwardness as government apathy. The ulema have never mobilised the community for modern education or for economic empowerment. They take to the streets and whip up Muslim sentiments only on narrowly-conceived identity related issues. ...

A related issue is the mindset of the ulema class, which is definitely not conducive to coming to terms with the realities of modernity. By and large, theirs is a very ritualised understanding of, and approach to, Islam. What was a very simple religion has been projected as an enormously ritualised and complex one under the watchful eyes of the ulema. I refuse to buy the argument that we need a certificate of righteousness from the maulvis to be considered to be proper Muslims. For the maulvis to claim that they have the right to issue such certificates is to arrogate to themselves some of the authority of God, which is tantamount to the crime of shirk or associationism, a blatant violation of Islamic teachings. As a Muslim, I am answerable for my faith, beliefs and actions to God alone, and not to any maulvi. I do not need his approval at all. I refuse to pander to the maulvis, who self-righteously regard all others but followers of their own sect as kafirs. This narrow-mindedness of the maulvis is really troubling. It is also responsible for the backwardness of Muslims. When the maulvis of the different Muslim sects simply cannot dialogue, and when they brand each other as kafirs and apostates, how on earth are they going to be able to dialogue with non-Muslims? If the maulvi's intolerance rules out intra-Muslim dialogue, how can we have meaningful inter-faith dialogue? -- Aijaz Ilmi, Chairman, Board of Siyasat Jadid, Lucknow, talking to Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com

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Pakistan: Why was Zaid Hamid chased out from Peshawar University but welcome elsewhere?
 

Egyptian women need to keep the fire burning
 

In the raucous crowd, she stepped on a water jug to catch a glimpse of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, who had stood with the demonstrators before Hosni Mubarak was ousted as President. “I see him! I am really happy!” she exclaimed, beaming, one voice among thousands. “Raise your head high, you are Egyptian!” they chanted. Egypt's popular revolution was the work of men and women, bringing together housewives and fruit sellers, businesswomen and students. At its height, roughly one-quarter of the million protesters who poured into the square each day were women. Veiled and unveiled women shouted, fought and slept in the streets alongside men, upending traditional expectations of their behavior. The challenge now, activists in Cairo say, is to make sure that women maintain their involvement as the nation lurches forward, so that their contribution to the revolution is not forgotten. -- Sharon Otterman

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Texas Maulid Celebration 2011
 

Sami Qureshi further said that the representatives of local Christian and Jew community also attended the celebrations. A Jew whose son was bedridden for a long time also participated in the ceremony to pray for his son’s health. He had heard that the collective prayers made in the Maulid ceremonies are granted soon.

The entry for the participants in the spacious Music hall was free. A large number of women and children participated in the programme that started at 6 PM and continued till late in the night. Stalls had also been put up in the hall and the participants were served dinner as well. The arrangements in the ceremony were satisfactory and praiseworthy in every aspect. A large number of volunteers was seen serving and helping the guests. When I alongwith my family, brother Qazi Latif and Nur Mohammad Gujral entered the Music Hall, an enthralling atmosphere greeted us. The hosts were busy in their work at the stage. Background music was making the atmosphere all the more spiritual. The popular Naat singer, Gold Medallist Mr Noor Mohammad Gujral and Milad Raza Qadri from the UK spellbound the audience with their naat recitation. -- By Raja Muzaffar (Translated from Urdu by New Age Islam Edit Desk)

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A revolution needs a poet
 

But Faiz was willing to do more than write poems to give vent to his anger. An honorary colonel in the Army, he, along with some other Armymen and civilians, engaged in an attempt to overthrow the regime and replace it with an egalitarian one in Pakistan in the early Fifties. The attempt failed and Faiz, along with several others, was imprisoned for over four years in what was designated by the government as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. Some of Faiz’s finest poetry was composed during his incarceration, published as Dast-i Saba (The Touch of Breeze) and Zindaan Nama (Prison Memories). As with every political prisoner, the regime’s main weapon was to demolish his morale by destroying hope. Faiz became a warrior of hope by finding romance in the most dismal prison conditions. He constantly sought to demonstrate the utterly limited nature of the regime’s power by counterposing beauty and romance to it. -- Harbans Mukhia

Photo: Faiz Ahmad Faiz

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America in Af-Pak: The $110 billion question
 

When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings, it is impossible to not ask: What is the US doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?

Ever since 9/11, the West has hoped for a war of ideas within the Muslim world that would feature an internal challenge to the violent radical Islamic ideology of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That contest, though, never really materialised because the regimes we counted on to promote it found violent Muslim extremism a convenient foil, so they allowed it to persist. Moreover, these corrupt, crony capitalist Arab regimes were hardly the ideal carriers for an alternative to Bin Ladenism. To the contrary, it was their abusive behaviour and vicious suffocation of any kind of independent moderate centrist parties that fuelled the extremism even more. -- Thomas L. Friedman

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£10m bounty on Gaddafi - dead or alive
 

A Libyan Leader at War With Rebels, and Reality

Heavy machine gun fire shakes Gaddafi’s stronghold

Gunman attacks diplomats’ car in Karachi

UK keeps eyes shut as ISI uses turf to hit India

UN chief calls on Libyan foreign minister, appeals for end to violence

Embassy in Cairo works hard to send Indians to safety

‘Al Qaeda’ attack leads to fresh tension in Yemen

J& K govt asks hoteliers to stock up fearing repeat of unrest in Valley

Hounded from Pak Tihar jail is their home now

 Libya battles escalate, heavy Tripoli gunfire

'US planners mull military options in Libya'

Libya forces hold back rebel advance

Car used in Pak minister's killing found

Top Saudi scholars back ban on protests

US Defence Secretary Gates lands in Afghanistan

Cell phone outage affects millions in Pakistan

Gunmen attack MQM MPA’s Hyderabad residence

Saudi Arabia detains 22 Shias

7 terrorists killed in Kurram Agency

Iraq blast kills 6 in oil-rich Basra

Rebels hold British soldiers, diplomat in Libya

Abbas heads to Britain for talks on peace

U.S. Weighs Options, on Air and Sea

Saudi Arabia detains Shi'ites as clerics ban protests

Gaddafi launches counter-offensive on Libyan rebels

British “secret agents” held in Libya

2,300 Indians evacuated from strife-torn Libya so far

Jamiat to launch agitation against rightwing outfits

Egypt revolt gave us back our lives: Hamas chief

Verdict in Yunus case likely today

U.S. warns citizens on Yemen as protests swell

Afghans protest over child deaths in NATO raid

3 dead, 28 hurt in Crete after Libya ship arrival

Jordan Islamists demonstrate demanding freedom for jailed relatives

Rebels repel Misrata attack; Saudis evacuated from Libya

Shoura to pass mortgage law without delay: Al-Asheikh

PM’s office in Bahrain besieged by thousands

Baghdad Neighbourhood Celebrates

Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau

Photo: Hundreds of Qaddafi supporters rallied Sunday in Tripoli. “It was the best news I had ever heard,” one girl said. “We had taken the whole country back!”

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Countering Islamist Radicalism in Pakistan: Some Suggestions As To What We In India Can Do
 

The menacing threat that radical self-styled defenders of Islam today pose to the Pakistani state is, undeniably, a logical culmination of the very ideological basis of that state. It is certainly not an aberration or a betrayal of the ideals of the founding-fathers of Pakistan, that some of the Pakistani scholars at the seminar insisted on characterizing it as. The very notion of Pakistan is based on the untenable argument that the Muslims and Hindus of pre-Partition India were not just two distinct communities, but, more than that, two entirely different nations. It was claimed by the founders of Pakistan—and this continues to be official policy—that the Hindus and Muslims of India had nothing at all in common, and that, therefore, their very differences necessitated the setting up of a separate state of Pakistan for the Muslims of the subcontinent, where they would be free of Hindu domination and could, so the argument goes, be free to develop in accordance with the teachings of Islam. ... This task gains particular salience given the fact that ulema and other scholars who publicly articulate progressive and inclusive understandings of Islam that challenge the ideology of Islamist radicals are such a rarity in Pakistan today. There are several reasons for this, and I will identify only two. The first is sheer fear—of being declared an apostate, a heretic, an agent of this or the other ‘enemy of Islam’, and even of being killed for daring to critique, even if by using counter Islamic arguments, dominant discourses about Islam, particularly on issues such as jihad, inter-community relations and women.  …  A second reason for this state of affairs, as a Pakistani friend mentioned in a conversation in Delhi just a fortnight ago, is that the Pakistani elites, including the ‘modern’ educated intelligentsia, who might seem to be most in need of an enlightened Islamic discourse, have generally taken little or no interest in Islamic scholarship themselves. For them, so says my friend, religion is either some sort of taken-for-granted identity or else mere mumbo-jumbo superstition and a sign of backwardness, and hence something fit to be left to the mullahs to monopolise.--Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com

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Open letter to Pakistani leaders on Murder of Shahbaz Bhatti and demand for action
 

The murder of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Minority Affairs, again highlights the rampant lawlessness in Pakistan and the impunity with which the "forces of violence" act against "whoever stands against their radical philosophy," to quote the late Mr Bhatti. These "forces" find fertile ground to operate in an atmosphere where calls to vigilante action are publically made and celebrated. We urge the government and its functionaries to swiftly apprehend charge, try and punish Mr Bhatti's murderers, and also to take immediate measures to curb this trend. We urge all political parties and parliamentarians to take a clear stand on this issue: No citizen has the right to cast aspersions at the faith and beliefs of any other citizen or to term someone else a `blasphemer'. We urge the federal and provincial governments, the judiciary and the security and law enforcement agencies to ensure protection for those, like former information minister Sherry Rehman, who are publicly threatened by extremists. -- Citizens for Democracy (CFD), Karachi

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Torture Theology in the Devil’s Republic
 

The question of religion in Pakistan is too important and too volatile to be left in the hands of semi-literate ‘clerics’ but it is too dangerous for individuals such as Ghamidi and the late Mr Muhammad Farooq Khan (the liberal Islamic intellectual brutally murdered last year) to work alone It has now become clear that what the Iranian intellectual Abdol Karim Soroush had remarked is becoming a reality. A society which lacks religious intellectuals who can freely and unashamedly be critical in the public sphere and call to task fundamentalists and conservatives will inevitably decline into a form of tribalism with a veneer of religious piety.  It has now become clear that what the Iranian intellectual Abdol Karim Soroush had remarked is becoming a reality. A society which lacks religious intellectuals who can freely and unashamedly be critical in the public sphere and call to task fundamentalists and conservatives will inevitably decline into a form of tribalism with a veneer of religious piety. What has come to be in Pakistan is the full evolution and logical conclusion of the new generation of fundamentalism. -- Ahmad Ali Khalid

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http://www.NewAgeIslam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=4231

 

Democracy and Arabs
 

Sure the revolutions are brave, and they`re exhilarating to watch from afar, but in the end the military will take over, or the Islamists will take over, or they`ll mess it up some other way. This is the assumption that still underpins much of the outside comment and analysis on the Arab revolutions. The current rationale for this arrogant assumption is the `clash of civilizations’ tripe that Samuel Huntington and his pals peddled around the official circuit in Washington for almost two decades. The argument is that since the Arabs belong to the wrong civilization, they can`t get it right. -- Gwynne Dyer

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Religion of the Jahiliya: Jihadism is Kufr, not Islam - Pakistani Jihadists revealed plans for Indian Muslims in 1999
 

Indeed a prominent ex-militant Kashmiri leader told me just after Zuhr prayers in the Shah Faisal mosque in Islamabad that the first person to attack the Babri masjid on December 6, 1992, was a Jihadist from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK) who had joined the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) some time ago and was part of Mr. L. K. Advani’s rally along with several of his co-religionists. My informant was also a Jihadist once, but perhaps not completely devoid of the milk of human kindness and thus not a true Jihadist. He retained affections for his wife and kids stranded in the valley and his Hindu and Muslim classmates in Delhi where he had studied up to graduation. He was clearly not happy with the vision of an impending holocaust in India and tried to warn me. – Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam

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PAKISTAN’S DESCENT INTO ANARCHY
 

Under the circumstances, what sort of change is possible in Pakistan? The obvious expectation is regime change via an election later this year. But if that merely serves to replace one dysfunctional coalition government with another, there will be more popular frustration with “democracy” and we will have merely postponed the day of reckoning. Another option is a “soft coup” in which the military, judiciary and media implicitly join hands against discredited politicians and political parties by propping up a civil- military regime of technocrats to set things right. But keeping the PMLN and PPP out in the cold for any length of time and disqualifying their leaders won’t work. Sooner than later, the media will switch sides and start criticising the new regime and hankering for “accountable democracy” again. Meanwhile, the various flash points in Pakistan will continue to undermine the economy and disrupt foreign polity. Unemployment, inflation and shortages will keep tempers on the boil...

RAPIDLY increasing religiosity and anti- Americanism will keep foreign investors at bay. The mad scramble to stockpile nuclear weapons will continue to ring alarm bells in and outside the region. The proliferation of armed and organised jihadi and Taliban groups will pose severe problems for installing liberal democracy, building peace with India and doing business with the West, all of which are necessary for rejuvenating the state and society of Pakistan. If a war with India is provoked or there is conflict with the USA, then all bets will be off. The elements of a failing state are anarchy, assassinations ( eg Salman Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti, etc), civil strife, war, economic meltdown and secession. The only realistic option is for our political leaders to keep religious passion out of law and politics, anti- American outrage out of economic and foreign policy, and unaccountable corruption and inefficiency out of government. We must make democracy work so that Pakistan can survive and prosper as a nation- state. -- Najam Sethi

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Where is Pakistani society heading?
 

Apart from the assassination of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti, today the spirit of secularism and the spirit of tolerance is lacking. There is left no room for constructive and serious dialogue. If someone opposes any religious group, the group instead of countering his allegations with the help of logic and arguments, replies with guns and klashnikovs. The religious elements have also made the guns their tools. Non-liberalism and intolerance is gaining ground. There is also no scope for co-existence. Humility and refraction has become a thing of the past. Extremism and aggression has gained currency. Sectarian extremism is also at its peak. There is no guarantee for the security of the procession of any sect. Now the situation has come to such a passé that the religious processions and rallies are protected with klashnikovs. -- Suhail Anjum (Translated from Urdu by New Age Islam Edit Desk)

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Breaking the Indian Muslim stereotype: Maulana Vastanvi has become a metaphor for change
 

When expelled Samajwadi Party leader Naseem Usmani argued that modern education had no place in Darul Uloom, he was roundly rebuffed by the rest: “Do you even know that ilm [knowledge] is the third most recurring word in the Koran? Find us the passage in the holy book that tells Muslims not to broaden their horizon.” I raised the Modi issue and was instantly put down: “We are not saying that Muslims should forgive Modi or forget 2002. But all of you in the secular media want the Gujarati Muslim never to get out of his grieving. Hindu or Muslim, the Gujarati is a businessperson, and that is what Vastanvi was trying to say.”The words stung but they were true. The Congress and the secular media wanted the Gujarati Muslim forever to fight Mr. Modi but neither was there to protect him. In any case, unbeknown to most of us, the debate seemed to have progressed beyond the rights and wrongs of supporting Mr. Modi. There are some student firebrands who make a lot of noise, but “most of us have tired of the jalsa-jaloos [procession-protest] politics of the Muslim leadership,” Mr. Shahnawaz said. He was awfully proud of his cousin Saba Karim, who was training to be a pilot in Patna — the first to do so in two decades. “There is no disputing that deeni taleem [religious education] is the foundation of Darul Uloom. But being computer illiterate or not knowing English is not the solution. Right now we cannot even fill up a form,” said the young man, who made a stunning parting remark: “Do you know the Islamic revelation started with the word, Iqra, which means to read?”Muslims have long given up on government. On the plus side, the terrorism label has started to come off, and the sense of siege over identity and security has given way to aspiration hopes and dreams. Naturally there is anger with the old Muslim leadership and its crass opportunistic politics. Time will tell whether Mr. Vastanvi is just another political player or a reformer. For now, an unlikely Mohtamim seems to have become a metaphor for change. -- Vidya Subrahmaniam

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A Passport to a Barbarian Dystopia, where new techniques of torture and terror would be perfected?
 

Professor Ali has taken serious liberties with the facts and has tried to denigrate the Pashtuns by portraying them as a people inherently incapable of living under a democratic dispensation. He simply ignores the secular-democratic Khudai Khidmatgar Movement (KKM) that dominated the Pashtun polity in the first half of the 20th century. When Samuel Huntington and Warren Manshel co-founded the Foreign Policy magazine (FP) in 1970, they felt that “in the light of Vietnam, the basic purposes of American foreign policy demand re-examination and redefinition”. They pledged to do so through “an effort to stimulate rational discussion of the new directions required in American foreign policy”. ...

Pashtuns are outraged at FP for allowing its pages to be used not just to disparage a proud people but also to propose creating a terrorist haven. FP calls its flagship blog, ‘Passport’. But with this new low in geopolitical discourse it seems more like a passport to a barbarian dystopia, where new techniques of torture and terror would be perfected. Sam Huntington had said in an NPR interview: “I think clearly the US, as well as other western nations, should stand by their commitments to human rights and democracy and should try to influence other to move in that direction.” This is precisely what Barack Obama has decided to do in the rapidly unraveling situation in the Arab world. But apparently, Professor Ali has opted to stand on the wrong side of not just the Pashtuns but also the history itself. As for FP, it ought to revisit its first editorial. -- Dr Mohammad Taqi

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Demolish Kafir/ Mushrik/ Munafiq-manufacturing factories, says Sultan Shahin, defending New Age Islam against Talibani onslaught
 

….As a community we are more reactionary and obscurantist than positive and progressive. We live in fear and denial. There is nothing wrong with us Muslims; it’s all the result of Jewish conspiracy, Hindu conspiracy, Western imperialist conspiracy, etc. etc. We love living in the past, in the land of pointlessness. So our discussions too are not so much about issues of today as about the bygone past. We revel in discussing ad infinitum the dirty politics of seventh century Arabia and taking sides with one or the other party. We have no present and no plans for the future. As a community, that is. Some individuals, of course, do have plans for themselves as well as for the community and a vision of regeneration for Islam and the Muslim community. But they are reviled for thinking of this word rather than the other world where 72 houris are waiting for them in a land of milk and honey and of course, plenty of liquor. (In the case of poor women, of course, only their husbands, if any, would be waiting there, and yet some of them become suicide bombers, for some reason.) – Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam

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http://www.NewAgeIslam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=4144

 

Fatwa ka Bazar : Barelvi Mullah says Every Pakistani is KAFIR
 

Barelvi Mullah says Every Pakistani is KAFIR

Fatwa ka Bazar by M.A.N.

 Maulana Tariq Jameel firing on Shia and Deobandi "beghairat, " "sab se ganda hai phir bhi sunni kahklata hai.". "Sahaba-e-Huzoor Salam are kafir "(Nauzbillah). "Shia and Deobandi are both kafir. But the bigger Kafir is Deobandi, Shia at least proclaims he is not ahle sunnat, whereas Deobandis claim tobe ahle-sunnat."

Bara Kafir Deobandi hai. Wajibul Qatal (fit to be killed) hai, Aur is mein shak karne wala bhi wajibul qatal hai. (Deobandi is the bigger kafir and any one who doubts that is also kafir and  fit to be killed like the Deobandis.)

---

Maulana Tahirul Qadri firing on Deobandis: sab kafir hain. Wahhabis are Murtad, kafir, kuttay, dogs,  terrorist, lanati, Yazidi, kerbala kay terrorist, Muslim mamalik kay badshah dallay, brokers and prostitutes. Listen to  Moulvi Syed Irfan Shah Ashadi.

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Rebooting Islam: Let us at least resolve the issue - Who is a Muslim?
 

Islam is of course, a universal Deen, for all people in every corner of the world and for all times to come; but in order to fulfil its destiny it has to keep reinventing itself in every new age; it has to be rethought and reinterpreted in the light of the orthodox Islamic principles of Ijtihad, the gates of which were opened for us by Allah and the Prophet (Peace be upon him) and no Muslim has the right to close them down. –- Sultan Shahin, Editor, NewAgeIslam.com

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