Many Muslims throughout the world, both Sunni and Shia, are working towards dialogue and reconciliation between the two sects. They argue that it is just not possible to fully comprehend and much less to judge the historical figures of Islam and their motivations today, 13 or 14 centuries after the event, which led to the schism in Islam. Indeed, it is not possible to judge people even when events take place now in full view of the world media… India’s Shia and Sunni communities can serve as a beacon of hope in this process. Let us follow up on recent initiatives by Mohtarma Syeda Hamid and Maulana Kalb-e-Sadiq and keep moving in the direction of genuine, frank dialogue leading to real unity. -- Sultan Shahin, editor, NewAgeIslam.com

IS RELIGION FROM GOD OR MAN-MADE?

Fateh{puri@ believed in God, and there are various instances in his writings to prove that. However, he was not sure if God had anything to do with religion. As seen in the earlier instance, he tried to rationalize even the divine revelation, and showed that it was possible to see the Qur’an as the personal contribution of the Prophet. This was because, for Fateh{puri@, religion had a more utilitarian purpose, than spiritual. Religion, for him, was to serve as a guide for humanity, to remind them of doing good deeds, being kind to one another, and remembering God, while taking part in worldly pursuits and aiming for progress and success.

In reality, all religions of the world were made by humans and were not related to God, revelation or providence. The books that are said to be revealed, are the work of human brain only, and therefore, they have different thoughts and teachings according to different time and place. Neither does God need worship and submission, nor does He need anyone’s prayers.[i]

Fateh{puri@’s thesis was that the reasons why some matters have either been forbidden or recommended by religion can be understood by human intellect. Therefore, it is quite possible to say that religious instructions might have been created by human intellect to serve a functional purpose.

IS THE QUR’AN REALLY GOD’S SPEECH?

As mentioned above, Fateh{puri@ believed that the only thing that could be proven was that the Qur’an came from Muh{ammad’s mouth; whether it was really God’s speech is debatable. The only justification of its divine origin generally given, according to him, was that the grammar, literary quality and style of the h{adi@th and the Qur’an differ markedly and therefore, they are speeches of different entities, the Prophet and God. Fateh{puri@ never found this rationale satisfactory enough to prove such a broad assumption. He agreed that, undoubtedly the Qur’an was truly an extraordinary book in all its aspects and that during that age, nothing like it in either length or quality was produced. However, he argued, it would be going too far to assume that nothing like it could have been produced. Arabic literature and poetry at the time was quite developed, and oral tradition was flourishing. And since Prophet Muh{ammad was related to the Quraish tribe, which was famous for its oral literature and fluency of expression, it should not be surprising that his language was extraordinarily refined.

Fateh{puri@ answered the question of the differences in style and quality of the two works by saying that one’s language and actions are determined by the emotion one is feeling, and its intensity. He gave the example of poetry. There can be quite a lot of variety in the different verses written by the same poet, some of them perhaps being of a higher literary quality than others. The reason, he thought, was that the poet reached a certain state of mind when he wrote those particular high-quality verses. Those verses that suddenly come into a poet’s mind, without any effort on his part, are even in literary circles called ilha@mi@ or revelatory.[ii]

Coming back to the Prophet and the Qur’an, his basic hypothesis was that the Prophet must have reached a certain state of mind, resulting in the revelation (wahy). He explained that, unlike his contemporaries, the Prophet was born with an acute discernment of good from evil. A person like him would naturally be upset with the situation in which he found himself. This, according to Fateh{puri@, prompted him to get out of his world, hide in caves and think. His deep thinking would lead him into such a state where he would start producing this message. Words burst forth like a spring. The words in that message were obviously his, and in the same language that was widespread during the time and in that area. The only noticeable change was in the style of presentation, which according to Fateh{puri@ was the result of his state of mind. That is what truly constitutes a revelation, according to Fateh{puri@. And this was what made the language of the Qur’an so different from that of h{adi@th.[iii]

W.C. Smith was clearly not an admirer of Fateh{puri@’s extreme logic; he did not like the fact that Fateh{puri@ attacked the very idea of divine revelation. “Accordingly, the Qur’a@n was seen as a piece of literature, the personal contribution of Muh{ammad to the thought of the world; all of authority, as well as the ritual and formalism, of the religion was rejected.”[iv]

STATUS OF THE PROPHET

Prophet Muh{ammad, according to him, was basically a reformer who was very concerned about the state of his society:­ its illiteracy, ignorance, social evils like polygamy, infanticide, drinking (etc.), its material culture and idol worship. After all, he sat meditating in a cave for weeks even before the advent of the revelation. Fateh{puri@ mused that he must have been thinking about ways to cleanse his society of its ills and it seems, Islam turned out to be a good way of doing so.

Although other modernists also made an effort to humanise the Prophet, not many would have agreed with him that the Prophet had a personal agenda in bringing about Islam. The Prophet might have been concerned about his society, and there must have been a reason why he used to go to that cave, but there is no reason why these two things should be related. Apparently Fateh{puri@ was venturing here into the realm of pure speculation.

            Fateh{puri@ asked, “What is the position of the Prophet in Islam? Was he just a messenger, could anybody have become a messenger?” For him the choice of Muh{ammad as the Prophet was crucial. How Muh{ammad acted, how he lived his life, was a topic of primary importance for Fateh{puri. He considered it debatable whether the Qur’an is the speech of God or not, but it was historically proven, according to him, that it did come out of Muh{ammad’s mouth.[v] His earlier point that the Prophet might have had a reformist agenda of his own in bringing about Islam, and then his insistence that our only certain knowledge is that Qur’an came out of the Prophet’s mouth, amounted to placing a question mark on any involvement of God at all. This was one of the instances where he may have taken his logic too far, expressing views that clearly would not be acceptable to any ordinary believer. He appears an agnostic from these views, but seemingly this was not the case. He simply went wherever his logic took him and was not afraid of expressing radically different views.

--- JUHI SHAHIN

The so-called Indian Mujahedeen have used in their notorious e-mails certain Quranic verses to justify killing of innocent civilians. These are the same verses that enemies of Islam’s pacific and humane philosophy have been traditionally using for centuries to demonise Islam. Muslims who go berserk and want to simply smite all and sundry in their crazy stupor also routinely use these verses to justify their fanaticism and probably also to brainwash the still-not-so-crazy to their cause.

New Age Islam  urges Indian Ulema to come out with explicit, unequivocal statements that the Quranic verses like the following - “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers in fight, smite at their necks"- are now obsolete: they were meant for a specific situation during the Prophet’s life and do no apply today.

Also, they must clarify that the Muslim perception and belief that they alone are worthy of going to Heaven is total bunkum, according to Muslim precepts. Muslims are no better or worse than any other community. Islam has as much failed to create a New Man or for that matter a New Woman as any other reformist religion or philosophy.

--- Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam

Plus: A compilation of some verses from The Holy Quran used for brainwashing our youth and leading them on to what they are told is the path of Jihad and the way to Heaven.

Recent terror attack at Mumbai has reminded us once again that Pakistan Army, or one of its agencies Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) at any rate, is determined to change the very character of Islam, turning it into the pre-Islamic religion of the Jahiliya (Arabia in the Dark Ages). It had indeed given us ample evidence of its anti-Islamic character during the Kargil war by reminding us of the Battle of Uhud where a woman of Jahiliya, Hinda, had mutilated the dead body of Prophet Mohammad’s uncle, Hazrat Hamza. The Prophet [peace be upon him] had not only forgiven her but had made it a point to forbid the practice in every Muslim gathering thereafter for fear that the Muslims, too, might do something similar in retaliation. Blood feud and vengeance was rampant in the Arab world of the Jahiliya. One couldn’t help being reminded of that when reports came that one of the terrorists mentioned vendetta for Gujarat and demolition of Babri masjid by Hindutva forces as the justification for the killing of innocents at Mumbai.

 Pakistani “Islam” would indeed appear to be completely unrecognisable as Islam to a Muslim in any part of the world. Slowly but surely what appears to be a completely new religion seems to have caught the imagination of many people in Pakistan.  Its followers don’t, of course, consider it a new religion. Indeed this religion insists that it is Islam; in fact it calls itself true Islam or real Islam. But it can best be described as Jihadism, as its central belief system is based on a wilful misinterpretation of the Islamic concept of Jihad. It can also be called Talibanism, as the Taliban of Afghanistan, who studied in Pakistani madrasas run by the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan are its most avid practitioners.

 By and large, the western-educated liberal Pakistani intelligentsia, as I found out during several visits, hates this religion and is frightened of it. But as one by one all institutions of governance are succumbing to its growing power and its capacity for evil, they are getting scared to death. Some of them are simply planning to migrate to some non-Muslim majority country. No one is really fighting this malignant force, though some journalists and human rights activists still have the courage at least to express their horror and outrage at grave personal risk.  -- SULTAN SHAHIN, Editor, NewAgeIslam.com

Why can't we enjoy the freedom of the age of Kabeer or Raheem or our Vedic ancestors?

It is outrageous that in this day and age a respected newspaper like the Statesman cannot even publish as innocuous an article as Johann Hari’s “Why should I respect these oppressive religions?” It is being reproduced below courtesy Independent of London where it originally appeared. It seems some obscurantist Muslims had objection to it and so the Stalinist police arrested Mr. Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha, the editor and publisher of The Statesman, and curiously without provoking any debate or as far as I know even any coverage in secular democratic India’s independent media.

As you will see in the article below Johann Hari is very balanced and maintains equidistance from all major religions that he mentions. He makes a plea for freedom of expression. His main point is stated in the very first paragraph: “The right to criticize religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian.”

I am a religious person myself. But I don’t see how anyone can be religious in the true sense of the term without having ever been skeptical about religion, without having been agnostic or even atheist for a time. No truly religious person can ever question the right of others to question religion.  He would have the confidence to know that this questioning person will come to realize the value of religion in general, and maybe his religion too in course of time. He or she will see that as this fellow is questioning religion, he/she has the capacity to someday become religious. But of course those who follow their inherited religion are not going to see it this way. They are the inhabitants of the land of Jahiliya.

Now tell me my Muslim brothers and sisters! Would there have been a religion called Islam in the world today if Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) had taken your view of his ancestral religion? Would we have had Islam in the world today if the Prophet had not questioned and rebelled against the religion of his family and clan and tribe? Indeed would we have had any religion, any science, any literature, any philosophy? All progress emanates from questioning established truths.

However, this is no occasion for a discourse on progress. You cannot address followers of ancestral religions, followers of Abu Jahal, and discuss with them concepts of progress. You can just beat them in a war and then they will join you, as the Meccan followers of Abu Jahal joined Islam after their defeat.

I don’t know what the obscurantist Muslims of an enlightened city like Kolakata find objectionable in Johann Hari’s article. Perhaps it is the following passage that has provoked their ire:

“All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don't respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead. I don't respect the idea that we should follow a "Prophet" who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him.

“I don't respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don't respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of "prejudice" or "ignorance", but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.

“When you demand "respect", you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade.”

Obviously Hari’s idea about the Prophet’s character is wrong, but it is based in large parts on the propaganda launched by Arab Muslims who want to justify their own pedophilic proclivities by announcing from rooftops even today that the Prophet married a girl of six and consummated his marriage when she was nine. The kind of fatwas Saudi Wahhabi Ulema (religious scholars) give on the issue even today, some of which available on NewAgeIslam.com, is enough to convince any non-Muslim and indeed any Muslim that this is what the Prophet did. Please refer to the following stories:

1.       Saudi Islam, misuse of Seerat-e-Nabwi allowed: No protection to young girls, some awful news stories

I am wearing this out of choice. If somebody forced me to wax my legs and wear a bikini, I would have been a prisoner. My hijab lets people just focus on my work and my values, than on my body.” Shaista says, “I think those who are forced to wear the hijab are enslaved.” But banning any kind of clothing, says Maria, is a “violation of human rights” and such statements are “irresponsible”. “Sarkozy should know if such practice is being followed for thousands of years, it has some use, otherwise it would have died out,” she says. -- Irena Akbar

Nicolas Sarkozy’s problem is that he hasn’t read enough Hegel. ... For Hegel this isn’t real freedom, because our wants and desires are determined by society. By those lights, a western fashion victim is as much a sartorial prisoner as a woman in a burqa. By real freedom, Hegel meant not doing whatever one wants but having the freedom from societal conditioning by using reason. If you come across someone who manages to be really free in this sense then send me their names so we can celebrate their escape. -- Stuart Jeffries

By Asad Mufty, Amsterdam

Should Mr Sarkozy ban the burqa from France? Definitely not. Because bans are undemocratic and an unqualified attack on individual freedom. Should we however use this opportunity to question the efficacy of the burqa, the chador, the veil or what you will? Definitely yes. Specially since the burqa isn't just another piece of cloth but has a lot of ideological and cultural connotations to it. The French President himself has termed it a symbol of subservience which has no place in a secular state.
Doesn't it have religious connotations, you may also ask? But hey, just let's keep religion out of this. Primarily because, as scholars point out, the Quran makes a mention of modesty rather than the word 'burqa' when it comes to women's apparel. The veil has more a cultural significance in Islam than a theological one. The Quran categorically mentions that "the best garment is the garment of righteousness." (7:26) And righteousness may or may not be interpreted as the burqa, depending on the personal choice of the person. -- Nikhat Kazmi  
---
Burqa is integral to Muslim identity  First part of Sarkozy's statement. The burqa is not a symbol of religion. The burqa, in fact, is integral to the Muslim identity as laypersons know it. But do the scriptures, the Koran, in particular say that women must wear burqa? I spoke to a couple of friends and Sarkozy's so wrong. The Prophet certainly advised Muslim women to protect their dignity. That a woman's dignity lies in her own hands and it is best that she have a chador when stepping out of the house…. Conditioning or choice, many Muslim women bond with their burqa. It's as much a style statement as a proud marker of identity. It gives them ‘security’, they say in a world that has become overtly sexualised. It's their choice to wear their identity on rather long sleeves, but that's none of my business. -- Nandita Sengupta

…now that the Pakistani security state has strictly been ordered by its paymasters to stop its own creation and its children from the mayhem they were at, it is imperative for the government to immediately order an extensive probe by a high-powered commission to investigate the delay in taking on the Yahoos and related matters to do with their sudden rise. This is imperative because the intelligence failure and the consequent delay resulted in the Yahoos getting stronger, which in turn allowed them to look for other prizes after Swat i.e. Buner which they took in a matter of days, and which “victory” in turn spread fear and despondency across the land because districts like Haripur and Hazara were next in line, some villages in Haripur already in their thrall. The body, set up on the lines of the Hamoodur Rehman Commission, should be made up of the many eminent gentlewomen and men we have in Pakistan….
The commission must go into the details of the Commando’s and his coterie’s handiwork: from giving Sufi Mohammad refuge in the Dera Ismail Khan jail in 2001 when his own people wanted to lynch him for getting their innocent children killed in the American assault on Afghanistan, to the rise of Fazlullah and Baitullah and Mangal Bagh and other such Yahoos, to the complete detriment of the country.
It must be noted that the security establishment will oppose this investigation (for that is what it will be, and will seek to apportion blame) with all its might but the political leaders simply must take the bit between the teeth and go for it. Let me add here that the commission might well find that politicians are to blame, or civil servants. Well, so be it, but it is high time that all those that have made the country a plaything to kick about as it takes their fancy be held to account and be firmly told that this is the end of the line for them. -- Kamran Shafi

The Qur’an asserts that if the use of force would not have been allowed in such cases, the disruption and disorder caused by insurgent nations could have reached the extent that the places of worship – where the Almighty is kept in constant remembrance – would have become deserted and forsaken, not to mention the disruption of the society itself:

And had it not been that Allah checks one set of people with another, the monasteries and churches, the synagogues and the mosques, in which His praise is abundantly celebrated would have been utterly destroyed. (22:40)

In religious parlance, this use of force is called Jihad -- Javed Ahmad Ghamidi,  renowned Islamic scholar based in Lahore, (Translated by: Shehzad Saleem)

If the idea is to cover up the body, then some of the undulating heaps , faces peeping out are more stimulating than ladies in Club Mediterranee or erotic gyrations by Bollywood prima donnas. Although the custom of covering women with head scarves is now generally associated with Islamic societies, the practice predates Islamic culture by many millennia. Veiling and seclusion were marks of prestige and status symbols in the Assyrian, Greco-Roman and Byzantine empires, as well as in Sasanian Iran. The Muslim Umayyads copied it from the Byzantines in Damascus, which they took over lock stock and barrel. According to one tradition, the Prophet Mohammad's wife Aisha did not veil her face. Generally, there was greater freedom for women among nomadic Arabs, Turks and Mongols before Islam.  -- K Gajendra Singh

A Fatwa on Purdah

فتوى على حجاب

Unveiling niqab, burqa, chador and hijab

كشف النقاب ، البرقع ، الشادور والحجاب

Is This the Culmination of Two Years of Destabilization?
A number of commentators have expressed their idealistic belief in the purity of Mousavi, Montazeri, and the westernized youth of Terhan. The CIA destabilization plan, announced two years ago (see below) has somehow not contaminated unfolding events…. Commentators are "explaining" the Iran elections based on their own illusions, delusions, emotions, and vested interests. Whether or not the poll results predicting Ahmadinejad's win are sound, there is, so far, no evidence beyond surmise that the election was stolen. However, there are credible reports that the CIA has been working for two years to destabilize the Iranian government. -- Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.
Who Put the ‘green’ in the Green Revolution?
The United States, of course. As in the previous “colour revolutions” that seem to tirelessly capture the romantic imagination of US journalists, elites, and the propagandized population, the warm embrace of the US empire is firmly guiding the “spontaneous” Iranian uprising against last week’s election results. While I do not and should not– nor should any other American — care in the slightest who rules a country some seven thousand miles away, when the fingerprints of the US Empire show up on these dramatic events overseas it is very much my business. -- Daniel McAdams
State Department Backs 'Reformists' in Wild Iranian Election  -- Kenneth R. Timmerman

The struggle between the worldly clerics (in alliance with the bazaar) and the republicans is as old as the 1979 Iranian revolution, where the “fedayeen” of the Tudeh party [Communist cadres] were the foot soldiers of the revolution but the clerics eventually usurped the leadership. ...Imam Khomeini was wary of the Iranian mullahs and he created the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (which is Mr. Khamenei’s source of power today) as an independent force to ensure clerics didn’t hijack the revolution. His own preference was that the government should be headed by non-clerics. In the early years of the revolution, the conspiracies hatched by the triumvirate of Beheshti-Rafsanjani-Rajai who engineered the ouster of the secularist leftist president Bani Sadr (who was Mr. Khomeini’s protégé), had the agenda to establish a one-party theocratic state. ...

If Mr. Rafsanjani’s putsch succeeds, Iran would bear the look of a decadent outpost in the “pro-West” Persian Gulf. Would a dubious regime be durable? More important, is it what Mr. Obama wishes to see as the destiny of the Iranian people? The Arab street is watching. Iran is an exception in the Muslim world where people have been empowered. Iran’s multitudes of poor who form Mr. Ahmedinejad’s support base, detest the corrupt, venal clerical establishment. They don’t even hide their visceral hatred of the Rafsanjani family. -- M.K. Bhadrakumar

Can jihad be declared against a non-Muslim government that does not in any way oppress Muslims? Can such a government be told either to accept Islam or else hand over power to Muslims? This is a very crucial question. ... it should be kept in mind that in those days all states were identified with one religion or the other.  Every state was strictly identified with a particular religion, and so it was simply inconceivable that any non-Muslim government would allow Muslims to invite its subjects to God’s path.  This is why the issue was never even discussed then of how Muslims should relate to a non-Muslim state that explicitly allowed Islam to be practiced in its territory or that permitted its subjects to accept Islam and follow it.
In the view of some scholars, in such a situation Muslims must adopt the path of peacefully inviting others to the faith, making use of it to the utmost extent possible so much as to that all the adequate proofs (hujjat) of God be made known. After this, God will decide, in accordance with His practice, which He invariably does after all His proofs have been clearly established, and which can take any form. My own limited understanding leads me to believe that this opinion is in closer accordance with reason, the spirit of the shariah, and the aims and wisdom of God’s revelation. This position can be backed by Hadith reports that insist on the need for peaceful propagation of Islam before fighting can at all be envisaged. And, it must be remembered, today it is no longer forbidden for Muslims to communicate their faith to non-Muslim rulers or non-Muslims in general. -- Maulvi Yahya Nomani (Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand)

Though no Pakistani has been flogged for the offence of consuming and selling alcohol ever since 1981, the Shariat Court’s verdict must have come as a blow to the architects of Zia’s Islamisation process that was largely based on Maududi’s politico-religious thesis of an ‘Islamic state.’ A state whose blueprint, many Islamic scholars opposed to Maududi-ism maintain, does not exist in the Qu’ran and is only a generation of Maududi’s imagination.There are a number of progressive Muslim scholars, especially in Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia, Algeria and Indonesia, who seem to be making deeper inroads in the 21st century Islamic reformist psyche. In Pakistan Javed Ahmed Ghamdi, the London-based Ziauddin Sardar and respected intellectual, Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy can be named.
In their work on Islam they have taken a scientific and a strictly academic approach, and are not immune to openly question the historicity of the Laws of Islam that have been handed down to us from the 8th century onwards; or a history and versions of the Shariah that started to appear almost two centuries after the demise of the Prophet. To them the Muslims need to have an interpretative relationship with the Holy text. According to Sardar, for example, we have been relying on an age-old interpretation of the Qu’ran, one that is ice-capped in history. The context of this interpretation is of the 8th and 9th century Muslim societies. It needs to be radically updated through ijtihad. -- Nadeem F. Paracha

A few Muslims in Mumbai have taken King Khans’ words out of context and have filed a case against him alleging that he maligned the Prophet. (News item below). We the Muslims condemn the acts of the Aman group for initiating such an irresponsible act, and it is time for Muslims to speak up against pettiness like this. It is time for the world, not to flaunt stuff like this, you’ll find that in every group.

The filing of case against Shah Rukh Khan by the Aman group deserves condemnation on two counts: i) it is something the Prophet would not approve. The Prophet told his followers not to be judgmental about other persons, and if you hear negatives about others, it is your duty to find the truth before it gets out of your mouth. You should not spread falsities and you should not be in a position to regret. ii) It is the dumbest things to do.

The discontent among young Iranians has been growing steadily for years now. Even before the advent of Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iran suffered from one of the world’s most sizeable brain drains. -- Azadeh Moaveni

Iran’s stolen election and what comes next

The social and political tumult in Iran following the disputed presidential election is intensifying. This post-election crisis makes it even more necessary to be clear about what happened around the vote -- Farhang Jahanpour.

Dr. Sarkar Haider ponders the moral frailties of mankind

A few years back while standing in a Cairo museum, looking at the mummified corpse of Ramses II, a renowned cardiologist, Dr. Sarkar Haider, now based in Bareily, India, felt besieged by several questions. While Time has answered some of his questions and the rest have died out a natural death, the biggest question he had on his mind that day still haunts him: is the Pharaoh, who was thought to be immortal, finally dead or is he still alive?

If Pharaoh 3.0 is here, could the Deliverer be far behind?

Dr. Haider’s musings lead him to the conclusion that the current age is the age of Pharaoh 3.0, which is more menacing, more powerful, more aggressive, more spiteful than the original one. But then another question has cropped up in his mind: Where is the Deliverer?

 By Irshad Ahmad Haqqani

A variety of opinions on the subject of Islam and homosexuality led to a heated debate. Panelist Amal Amireh, professor of women and gender studies at George Mason University, said there are many homosexual Muslims that practice Islam, adding that it is important to speak for these people."Speaking about homosexuality and Islam is risky," Amireh said. "Not speaking about homosexuality and Islam is riskier." While a majority of the Muslim panellists agreed that homosexuality was permissible under Islam, some said being gay was against their religion. Hisham Mahmoud, a lecturer at Princeton University, said, "No jurist will ever accept homosexuality as a practice," and condoned the punishment of homosexuality. The lecturer's comment provoked an outburst of emotion from panellist Imam Dayiee Abdullah of the Al-Fatiha Foundation and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Religious Roundtable, both of which advocate for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Muslims.- - Jennifer Tchinnosian -------------------------
We must reiterate, as does Isabelle Levy in “Soins et croyances” [1] that all the worlds’ major religions and spiritual traditions—from the majority view in Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism to Christianity and Islam—condemn and forbid homosexuality. The great majority of rabbis hold the same position, as do the Pope and the Dalaï Lama, who condemns homosexuality. For these traditions, as for Freud (who speaks of “perversion”), homosexuality is considered to be “against nature,” an “expression of disequilibrium” in the growth of a person. The moral condemnation of homosexuality remains the majority opinion of all religions, and Islam is no exception. It would be senseless to wish to deny the facts, to contradict the textual sources and to force believers to perform intellectual contortions so that they can prove they are in tune with the times. -- Tariq Ramadan

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Iranian citizens pour into the streets in order to protest against their government! What a wonderful sight! Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz that he envies the Iranians.
And indeed, anyone who tries these days to get Israelis in any numbers into the streets could die of envy. It is very difficult to get even hundreds of people to protest against the evil deeds or policies of our government -- and not because everybody supports it. At the height of the war against Gaza, half a year ago, it was not easy to mobilize ten thousand protesters. Only once a year does the peace camp succeed in bringing a hundred thousand people to the square -- and then only to commemorate the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The atmosphere in Israel is a mixture of indifference, fatigue and a "loss of the belief in the ability to change reality", as a Supreme Court justice put it this week. A very dramatic change is needed in order to get masses of people to demonstrate for peace.
FOR MIR-HOSSEIN MOUSAVI hundreds of thousands have demonstrated, and hundreds of thousands have demonstrated for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That says something about the people and about the regime.Can anyone imagine a hundred thousand people gathering in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest against the official election results? The police would open fire before a thousand had assembled there.
Would even a thousand people be allowed to demonstrate in Amman against His Majesty? The very idea is absurd. -- Uri Avnery

Let us Focus on the Future
The Liberhan report may explain certain things but in the end it would not serve any purpose, as the wounds that have been healed, would freshen up. It is therefore advisable for the Muslim community not to make a big issue of it and disturb the hard earned unity and solidarity of the country.
There is no point in revisiting the past. The demolition of Babri Masjid, carnage of Gujarat, bomb blasts and other extremists activities are the things of the past. Muslims have to put all these events behind to look forward for future. The people of India have given a fresh mandate to the UPA govt rejecting altogether the communal elements, as they valued secularism as a cherished goal of the country.
Let all of us, belonging to Muslim community, join the rest of the population in extending our support for the govt to concentrate on development activities that would lead to economic recovery which is of greater importance in the life of our country men than holding who is guilty or not of the already demolished Babri Masjid. It would not help Muslims to resurrect the past. Let us bury it deep into history.
Let us all remember that we may not be saintly enough to forgive and forget our enemies, but for the sake of our own health, the betterment of our own lives, let us forgive and forget them. Muslims better remember this and march forward. -- A.M. Jamsheed Basha

The Struggle Within the Regime
The key to understanding the situation in Iran is realizing that the past weeks have seen not an uprising against the regime, but a struggle within the regime. Ahmadinejad is not part of the establishment, but rather has been struggling against it, accusing it of having betrayed the principles of the Islamic Revolution. The post-election unrest in Iran therefore was not a matter of a repressive regime suppressing liberals (as in Prague in 1989), but a struggle between two Islamist factions that are each committed to the regime, but opposed to each other.
The demonstrators certainly included Western-style liberalizing elements, but they also included adherents of senior clerics who wanted to block Ahmadinejad’s re-election. And while Ahmadinejad undoubtedly committed electoral fraud to bulk up his numbers, his ability to commit unlimited fraud was blocked, because very powerful people looking for a chance to bring him down were arrayed against him.
The situation is even more complex because it is not simply a fight between Ahmadinejad and the clerics, but also a fight among the clerical elite regarding perks and privileges — and Ahmadinejad is himself being used within this infighting. The Iranian president’s populism suits the interests of clerics who oppose Rafsanjani; Ahmadinejad is their battering ram. But as Ahmadinejad increases his power, he could turn on his patrons very quickly. In short, the political situation in Iran is extremely volatile, just not for the reason that the media portrayed. -- George Friedman, Stratfor

Above all, to question the veil, Muslims must challenge what the US-based academic of Hyderabad origin, Muqtadar Khan, calls the “epistemological hijab”, the curtain that the male Muslim clergy has kept between Islamic scripture and women. Muslims engaged in ripping apart this epistemological curtain can see that during the lifetime of the Prophet and for a while thereafter, the Muslim woman was acknowledged as an autonomous human being. She was considered a person in her own right, not just a mother, sister, wife or daughter. Over fourteen centuries ago, it was both an obligation and a right of Muslim women to participate actively in the religious, economic, social and political life of the community. The clergy must explain how it happened that the female sex subsequently got pushed out of the common public space. The “pious burqa” is but a manifestation of this subversion of early Islam. -- Javed Anand  

France has also been a pioneer of sorts when it comes to the feminist movement of the world. Feminism was conceived and practiced first in France and has been a source of inspiration all over the world. France is also known for its outspoken feminine sexuality which might sometimes be beyond the comprehension of the eastern mind-set. Catherine Breillat, for instance, is a movie-maker whose films have created ripples worldwide on this issue but even their concept couldn’t have been imagined in Asian or Middle Eastern societies. French society is a developed society today but it has sacrificed a lot in reaching where it has.

Sarkozy’s remark can be viewed as a result of a compelling pressure of French ethos and its history as Burqa is the symbol of the regressive civilization of medieval ages which is gaining currency in French society amongst immigrant Muslims. To any French national who knows the history of his liberal culture that set women free from medieval bonds, this might seem like an imminent threat to his society’s value system.

But we should also try to understand the psychology of the Muslims world over who are under constant attack from Western Media and who are facing military aggression as well. Muslims are suffering from a loss of identity especially in the western world. -- Shamshad Elahee Ansari

Why is an Aussie anthropologist coaching American generals on how to win wars? David Kilcullen, an Australian army reservist and top adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus during the troop surge in Iraq, has spent years studying insurgencies in countries from Indonesia to Afghanistan, distinguishing hard-core terrorists from "accidental guerrillas" -- and his theories are revolutionizing military thinking throughout the West. Kilcullen spoke with Outlook's Carlos Lozada on why Pakistan is poised for collapse, whether catching Osama bin Laden is really a good idea and how the Enlightenment and Lawrence of Arabia helped Washington shift course in Iraq. Excerpts:
David Kilcullen: Pakistan is 173 million people, 100 nuclear weapons, an army bigger than the U.S. Army, and al-Qaeda headquarters sitting right there in the two-thirds of the country that the government doesn't control. The Pakistani military and police and intelligence service don't follow the civilian government; they are essentially a rogue state within a state. We're now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state, also because of the global financial crisis, which just exacerbates all these problems. . . . The collapse of Pakistan, al-Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover -- that would dwarf everything we've seen in the war on terror today.

In my mind, this is one of the big problems with using the phrase “war on terror.” It gets people in a frame of mind where they’re thinking of analogies like “what would I do to a Nazi tank column?” rather than “what would I do to a crime-plagued neighbourhood?” And when trying to figure out the right approach here, the right thing to do isn’t to ask yourself whether international terrorism is “really” a kind of warfare or “really” a kind of crime. The right thing to do is to ask yourself what kind of strategic goals you have and what kind of tactics are likely to achieve them. What we want is for Muslim communities around the world to cooperate with various governments around the world to smoke out and apprehend would-be violent extremists. That’s more like a crime-fighting mission. -- David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum

Persecution of Ahmadiyas, Ismailis in Pakistan
The Taliban have begun harassing Ismaili Muslims in Pakistan. They would not spare any one and will not be satisfied until the last person left obeys them. If this trend is not checked and criticized, they may think that they have the approval from the Muslims. They don't. They need to know clearly and loudly that their ideology has no currency among Muslims and above all, their cruelty is not Islam, not one bit....
The persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan is a living example; they cannot even say "As Salaam u Aliakum" or call their place of worship a Masjid. The epidemic has now crawled over into Bangladesh and Indonesia as well. Did the Pakistani lawmakers even pause to think about the legitimacy of Hudood Laws? Some thirty years later another Avatar of Zia ul Haq employed the same strategy of fear and got the Patriot Act passed here in the United States. Both the laws are a stain on the civil societies....
As Muslims, we do not have the time to do the Ijtihaad, the consultative decision making process on issues of the day. As a result we Muslims have been reduced to rituals, rather than the spirit. It is time to believe in the prime value of Islam; freedom. -- Mike Ghouse

I have to confess that I don’t get it when some women say that being behind a veil liberates them from the prying eyes of the male gaze and makes them feel safer. It’s become just about the most clichéd explanation. ...Essentially, classic western feminism hits a dead-end when it comes to a complex word called choice. Traditions that seem patently unequal find refuge in the argument of choice. And we can debate forever whether it’s about free will or socialisation by a patriarchal regime, but there’s not much you can say to a woman who chooses to drape herself in swathes of black cloth. I still remember Kamala Das, the eccentric — but fiercely independent — poet arriving on my television show in a burqa. She had recently converted, and this she said, was her choice. How could anyone argue against that? -- Barkha Dutt
A reproduction of the Taliban dress code The reality of the matter surpasses the burqa itself. This is seen clearly in the fear that swiped France in reaction to the burqa, which appears like a reproduction of the dress code imposed by the Taliban on women in Afghanistan. the reality of the matter surpasses the burqa itself. This is seen clearly in the fear that swiped France in reaction to the burqa, which appears like a reproduction of the dress code imposed by the Taliban on women in Afghanistan. The historic implications of the burqa are those of radicalism and extremism, thus the stir is not an expression of racism against Muslims, as some claimed, but simply a fear of a drift towards sectarianism. There is no doubt that immigrants, in general, are subject to injustice and restrictions in France for many reasons not related to the burqa, but to the country's economic and social situations. Surely, there are some fanatics in France, but they remain a minority, just like in all other countries. -- Mohammad Makhlouf

The Iraq war has been an unmitigated catastrophe for Iraq itself, of course, but also for the stability of the whole region. Without the counterweight of Iraq, Iran has been promoted into a regional superpower, and is now far more of a challenge than Iraq ever was. Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism have flared up across the Arab and Muslim world. As for the United States itself, it has squandered its manpower, its finances and its reputation on a war that should never have been fought. Obama knows this, and is determined that Israel will not again entrap America in a war.
Seen from Israel, Obama’s call for a dialogue with Iran, and perhaps even a “grand bargain” with it, could result in a threat both to Israel’s military hegemony and to its nuclear monopoly. Rather than any sort of compromise over uranium enrichment, it wants Iran’s nuclear facilities destroyed. Israel, Netanyahu said in Washington, retains the right to defend itself. The United States-Israel divide is very wide and deep. It is unlikely to be bridged without a fight. -- Patrick Seale

Kamala Das had converted to Islam on 12 December 1999. Kamala Suraiya - her Islamic name - was considered to be one of the finest authors. She was also a good poet.

Known as a tradition-defying iconoclast, she had sought to convince her readers that inequality among humans is most inhuman. After a long creative life and having pondered over the ideology of Islam and presumably comparing it with other religions, for a long time, she decided to take refuge in Islam. After her conversion in a grand ceremony organized at Chohi in Kerala, she observed in a T.V interview: “I didn’t accept Islam under any pressure; it’s my spontaneous and personal decision. So I don’t care about any criticism, Islam is the most precious treasure for me and it is dear to me more than my life”.  -- Maulana Nadeem Al-Wajidee
Translated from Urdu by Syed Raihan Ahmad Nezami

By Irfan Siddiqui, a Pakistani columnist

A confrontation is brewing between those making personal sexual and moral choices and those upholding traditional values.  While gay pride marches are a regular feature in California, to hold them in traditional cities like Chennai and Bhubaneswar may not immediately serve the cause of creating an inclusive society. Would a colourfully dressed man flaunting his sexuality not, even if it was not intended to be, be too much of a shock for traditional families? While dress codes need to be challenged, yet must Twinkle Khanna unbutton Akshaye Kumar’s jeans in public? Expressions of personal sexual freedom and choice are a basic human right of every citizen, but they will only create a vicious backlash if such choices are seen to be exhibitionist and disconnected. After all, the Indian homosexual lives in all spheres of society, not just among the glitterati, and the aam aadmi homosexual needs maximum protection by society and law. He cannot be protected if the more visible members of the gay community fail to create a dialogue with the mainstream. -- Sagarika Ghose

Dalits should convert to Islam if they want real equality
By Maulana Nadeemul Wajidi
Translated from Urdu by Syed Raihan Ahmad Nezami

The author of this article, Maulana Nadeemul Wajidi (Urdu Text below) believes that Hinduism, as a religion is responsible for the degradation of Dalit (lower, oppressed) castes. He says that Dalits have no option but to convert to Islam, if they want real equality.

New Age Islam considers this gratuitous advice with incendiary potential and truly uncalled for. Dalits are a very perceptive and alert community, quite capable of making their own choices. They are better off than Muslims in many respects.  They have successfully acquired real power in several states and have powerful representatives in the council of ministers at the centre.  Many higher caste Hindus believe they are more equal than others among Hindu castes and spend money buying fake Dalit caste certificates in order to partake of the privileges granted to them in the Indian constitutional system.

 If Dalits feel they are not getting enough respect or equality –– they would know how to fight for their rights in the legal, religious, social and legislative spheres. And if some of them feel they have no option but to leave the Hindu fold, they have a wide open field, full of choices. People belonging to all religions seem to be operating at more or less the same spiritual level. All religions and philosophies have almost equally failed in creating an equal society, a better human race.

To single out Islam as the best, as the one that provides the most equality is a travesty. It is contrary to the facts of life in the world today. If anything non-Islamic societies are somewhat better off in this respect. India, for instance, gives religious rights to its minorities –like allowing them to organise their p[personal lives  in accordance with their own religious personal laws - that no other democratic society does. Muslim societies come off as the worst in granting human rights to religious minorities.

If at all we find some Muslim societies aspiring to become democratic, they are the ones neighbouring India and envy for India’s successful democracy is certainly part of the motivation. But even in these countries, granting equal rights to religious minorities or other weaker sections a la India is not part of their agenda. They are merely aspiring to become electoral democracies.
Muslims would do better to introspect, try to organise their own lives more in conformity with Islam’s universal humanitarian precepts, before criticising other religions and giving unwarranted advice to other communities. Let us set our own house in order first.
Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam

Clearly, both secular and religious societies have tried to control the practice of homosexuality but failed. It is time now for them to come to terms with ground reality and accept the demand for legalisation of this widespread practice. Though science is still not very clear about its genetic roots, given its spread across the length and breadth of the world spanning all secular and religious societies, it should be accepted as coming to human beings as a natural “affliction.” If so, both secular and religious societies should try and come to terms with it.

Islam is better placed than all other religions to come to terms with continuing or changing ground realities. It has the institution of ijtihad (rethinking, reform), as a part of its orthodox practice. It’s time Muslims decided to open the closed gates of Ijtihad and discussed and changed the laws regarding homosexuality, among a whole host of other things. -- Shamshad Elahee Ansari

Uighur Muslim minority clashes with police in China
Riot in Urumqi: (Now the figure has risen to more than 150 killed – Editor)  At least three people were killed and more than 20 injured after an ethnic minority clashed with police in China's far north-western province of Xinjiang. The disturbances come after a year of rising tensions between the dominant Han Chinese authorities and the Uighur ethnic minority. The clashes in Urumqi on Sunday night between police and a 3,000-strong crowd from the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority left burned-out cars and buses and several smashed shop-fronts. -- Peter Foster in Beijing
---
Travellers in today's China are often surprised to discover that the country has a sizeable Muslim population. According to the Chinese government, there are more than 20 million Muslims who live in all parts of the country. Others say the number may even be higher. Many Chinese towns have mosques. The call to prayer can be heard on Fridays from Beijing to Yunnan in the south, and especially in the oases of arid Xinjiang in the far northwest. But there are subtle differences among the communities that follow Islam in China — cultural, linguistic and nationalist nuances that formed over centuries of an often-troubled history. Muslims have lived in the Middle Kingdom from just after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD. – Backgrounder, CBC News

Leiden University has a long tradition of Islam-studies. Granted, these studies were subject to their times. Studying Islam in the 16th and 17th century was aimed at understanding the religion of a faith that was considered inferior and even hostile to Christianity. And in the 18th and 19th centuries, when The Netherlands were colonizing Indonesia, the study of Islam was considered relevant for colonial purposes.
But times have changed drastically since then. Until recently the study of Islam meant a trip to the library or to some faraway exotic land. But now Islam is here, in the West. Muslims are our lawyers and legislators, bankers and bakers, cleaners and criminals. There are over 450 mosques in The Netherlands alone, headscarves and djellabas have become common features of street life. Many of our students are Muslim. -- Maurits Berger, head of the department of Islamic Theology

Religious leaders may please keep their religious views private as it should be confined to the followers of their religion. If they have any objection, let them educate their followers on the flip side of homosexuality. Let them not try to impose their views on those who hold pragmatic views. If gays exist, let them exist. In any case they are not new in the society. They have existed in the society from time immoral, though they did not come out in the open for their cause as they do today. One can now see so many gays both men and women come out in the open without covering their faces. That means they have no worry over the possible social stigma to be attached to them. The government therefore has to be very rational and take a pragmatic view before deciding on the legalisation to make homosexuality legal. In any case very few were prosecuted under the penal provisions of Section 377 of IPC. The law itself was 148 years old introduced by Lord Macaulay during the colonial rule and certainly it needs to be reviewed keeping the present situation in mind. -- A.M. Jamsheed Basha

What the Muslim women really need to cudgel against is the gender bias prevalent in Muslim societies. They must realise that the Muslim patriarchy rallies around them when they demonstrate against issues such as the proposed ban on burqa (which could be easily circumvented), but the support of the clergy is conspicuously absent when it comes to pressing problems like instant triple talaq, hedonistic polygyny or child marriage. -- A. Faizur Rahman

Repeated use of Islamic phrases underlines the extent to which the faith has been cynically used to spread violence. While Muslims argue that Islam does not condone this kind of terrorism against unarmed, innocent civilians, most do not condemn it in clear, unequivocal terms. After agreeing that such acts are un-Islamic, there is all too often a lingering "Yes, but…" hanging in the air.
It is this ambiguity that has given terror groups in Pakistan and elsewhere the space and legitimacy to operate. Now that Pakistanis have seen the true face of terrorism in Swat, and have begun to support the government in its drive to rid us of this cancer, the lesson needs to be reinforced. One way would be to dub the Channel 4 documentary and show it extensively on various TV channels in Pakistan. We need to hear ordinary people who survived or lost close relatives, and see their pain.
We need to see the horrors inflicted in the name of Islam. Above all, we need to share the agony of our neighbours. -- Irfan Hussain

By Azeem Akhtar

Since the end of World War II, the United States has seriously intervened in some 30 elections around the world, adding a new twist this time, twittering. The State Department asked Twitter to postpone a scheduled maintenance shutdown of its service to keep information flowing from inside Iran, helping to mobilize protesters [2]. The New York Times reported: “An article published by the Web site True/Slant highlighted some of the biggest errors on Twitter that were quickly repeated and amplified by bloggers: that three million protested in Tehran last weekend (more like a few hundred thousand); that the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi was under house arrest (he was being watched); that the president of the election monitoring committee declared the election invalid last Saturday (not so)” [3] -- William Blum

By Syed Mansoor Agha

Siti Musdah Mulia of the Indonesia Conference of Religions and Peace cited the Koran's al-Hujurat (49:3) that one of the blessings for human beings was that all men and women are equal, regardless of ethnicity, wealth, social positions or even sexual orientation. "There is no difference between lesbians and non-lesbians. In the eyes of God, people are valued based on their piety," she told the discussion organized by non-governmental organization Arus Pelangi. "And talking about piety is God's prerogative to judge," she added. "The essence of the religion (Islam) is to humanize humans, respect and dignify them." Musdah said homosexuality was from God and should be considered natural, adding it was not pushed only by passion. Mata Air magazine managing editor Soffa Ihsan said Islam's acknowledgement of heterogeneity should also include homosexuality.  -- Abdul Khalik

By Khaleel Ahmad Khalish

'The veil is a tool of oppression used to alienate and control women under the guise of religious freedom'. 'Nowhere in the Koran does it state that a woman's face and body must be covered in a layer of heavy black cloth'.

Many of my adult British Muslim friends cover their heads with a headscarf - and I have no problem with that. The burkha is an entirely different matter. It is an imported Saudi Arabian tradition, and the growing number of women veiling their faces in Britain is a sign of creeping radicalisation, which is not just regressive, it is oppressive and downright dangerous.

The burkha is an extreme practice. It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community. But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it is alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask. The veil restricts women. It stops them achieving their full potential in all areas of their life, and it stops them communicating. It sends out a clear message: 'I do not want to be part of your society.' Every time the burkha is debated, Muslim fundamentalists bring out all these women who say: 'It's my choice to wear this.' -- -- SAIRA KHAN

Malik claims this was a calculated move by Khomeini – then facing the ignominy of withdrawal from the war in Iraq – to subvert reformist voices within Iran and gain political ground across the Muslim world. “The fatwa sowed confusion and division among supporters of the Saudi regime,” writes Malik. “A number of militants who had taken part in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union and who had been within Riyadh’s orbit now pledged allegiance to Tehran… The reformers were forced to denounce Rushdie.”
The fatwa also turned Islam into a domestic issue for the West. Malik, who was born in India but grew up marching along anti-racism rallies in 1980s Britain, explains how it was these progressive rallies that made the ground fertile for the seed of the fatwa to grow into the cactus of Islamism. -- Saif Shahin

Maulana Nadeem Al-Wajidi explains in this article (Translated from Urdu by Syed Raihan Ahmad Nezami) why in his and other Islamic scholars’ view the veil is essential for Muslim women. Supporting his arguments from Quranic verses and Hadees, he explains why a woman should not only be veiled from head to toe but no more than one of her eyes should preferably be allowed to see the world, and that too, of course, from behind the netting in the veil.
An essential read for both kinds of readers: those who want to confirm themselves in their view that women have to be kept under leash, practically imprisoned in their houses in order to save them from prying male eyes and their Satanic conduct; and also those who want to see what nuts our maulanas are and what kind of primitive world they live in and to what extent they can go to disparage the great, forward-looking religion of Islam which essentially freed women from slavery at a time when almost the entire world was mired in backwardness and ignorance and women were treated as chattel, if at all they were allowed to be born -- Editor 

The Liberal would dismiss Islam as sinister for its take on human rights and women in particular. The Left would fall into the trap of denouncing religion in general as ‘reactionary’. Maybe without realizing it, both Lib and Left are falling here into a clear supremacist argument. Since both Islam and Judaism are more than just religions, they convey a ‘way of life’ and stand as a totally thorough answer to questions regarding being in the world, the Western Lib-Left are at danger of a complete dismissal of a large chunk of humanity.
I have recently accused a genuine Leftist and good activist of being an Islamophobe for blaming Hamas for being ‘reactionary’. The activist, who is evidently a true supporter of Palestinian resistance was quick to defend himself claiming that it wasn’t only ‘Islamism’  that he didn’t like, he actually equally hated Christianity and Judaism. For some reason he was sure that hating every religion equally was a proper humanist qualification. Accordingly, the fact that an Islamophobe is also a Judeophobe and Christiano-phobe is not necessarily a sign of a humanist commitment. -- Gilad Atzmon

By Prabhash Joshi

In 2007, Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve, told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that "taking Saddam out was essential" -- a point he made in his book The Age of Turbulence -- because the United States could not afford to be "beholden to potentially unfriendly sources of oil and gas" in Iraq. It's exactly that sort of thinking that's still operating in U.S. policy circles: the 2008 National Defence Strategy, for example, calls for the use of American military power to maintain "access to and flow of energy resources vital to the world economy."
After only five months in office, the Obama administration has already provided significant evidence that, like its predecessor, it remains committed to maintaining that "access to and flow of energy resources" in Iraq, even as it places its major military bet on winning the expanding war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There can be no question that Washington is now engaged in an effort to significantly reduce its military footprint in Iraq, but without, if all goes well for Washington, reducing its influence. -- Michael Schwartz

By Fateh Mohammad Nadvi

By Shafique Ahmad

As this paper has sought to show, although the Qur'an and the genuine Prophetic traditions suggest a radically egalitarian social vision, actual Muslim social practice, including in India, points to the existence of sharp social hierarchies that numerous Muslim scholars have sought to provide appropriate 'Islamic' sanction through elaborate rules of fiqh associated with the notion of kafa'a. This was further boosted by distorted interpretations of the Qur'an and the invention of reports attributed to the Prophet that sought to legitimize social inequality based on ethnicity and occupation. In the Indian context, numerous leading 'ulama, almost all from the 'high' castes, have used these arguments to sanction caste and caste-based distinctions, particularly in matters of marriage. Yet, as Nu'mani's case shows, today at least some Indian 'ulama are willing to critically examine the corpus of medieval fiqh and seek inspiration and guidance directly from the Qur'an and the genuine Prophetic traditions instead, in order to recover the original Islamic vision that is robustly opposed to social hierarchy determined by birth, the very basis of the caste system. -- Yoginder Sikand

By Anwar Ali, Advocate, New Delhi

Sufi traditions powerful expression of people's Islam in our subcontinent

This dargah, representing years of Sufi traditions, which is open to everyone regardless of caste, creed, faith, age, or gender, twenty-four hours a day, not only posed a powerful challenge to the Hindu orthodoxy of the time, but also to the Muslim orthodoxy represented by the ulema (orthodox Islamic clerics). While the dominant Hindu practices emphasized caste hierarchies and exclusion, the dargah of the saint was the refuge of the most lowly, humble, and oppressed people of the land. While the Muslim priestocracy preached the supremacy of Islam, the religion of the conquerors, the Chistis demonstrated their love and acceptance of people of all faiths.

The Chistis, unlike many other Sufi traditions or orders, always kept a healthy distance from the power politics of the court. They practiced extreme poverty and simplicity. Their fondness for music soon endeared them to the masses. Like the shrine of any Hindu saint, the dargah of the Sufis became a centre not only of the worship of the pir or guru, but also a place of healing, refuge, and wish fulfilment. No wonder, people of all faiths, Hindus and Muslims alike, flock to these shrines even today.....

The very system of an unelected Supreme Leader ruling the country with the help of an elected president of his choice is being challenged.

It may take weeks or months or even years, but one thing is certain: the unravelling of Iran's Islamic revolution has begun: there will be no return to the status quo. Both the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stand diminished and their capacity to deal with the world as much as with their own people inexorably weakened. What began as a protest over suspected rigging of the elections that are supposed to have re-elected Ahmadinejad as president for another term has now metastasized into a challenge to the very system of an unelected Vilayet-i-Faqih (supreme jurist or leader) ruling the country with the help of a president elected by people from among the choices approved by the Supreme Leader himself. ....

Despite all these claims and counter-claims, however, it cannot be denied that a large percentage of Iranian population, including significant portions of the clerical establishment itself, is now fed up with the tyrannical ways of the Iranian mullahs. The educated youth and professionals are far ahead of the general society and thus have particular reasons to be disenchanted with their life under the revolutionary regime. They want much more freedom than is on offer even by the likes of Mousavi or Montazeri.

One example could illustrate this. Iran's state-run body for youth affairs said recently that rising numbers of Iranians are spurning marriage and having sex illegally outside wedlock. (See interesting details of an official survey below)

So it's not just democracy that Iran's youth are fighting for. They want drastic changes in societal mores. Similarly, with the growth in unemployment and general worsening of economic conditions, despite the oil wealth, a lot of people in the working class are disillusioned. With limited trading opportunities because of bad relations with the West and sanctions on account of the continuing fracas over the nuclear issue, the bazaris (business community) too are angry and disappointed, desperately wanting a change.

Clearly, even if the protests are suppressed now Iran will continue to boil, probably creating new and unforeseeable problems for the region and the world for some time to come. Revolutions don't let go of power easily. But since Iranian clerics are not willing to share power even with other clerics with slightly different views and want to run the country as an autocracy, the revolution appears bound to unravel sooner or later. The process may have just begun.

---- Sultan Shahin

Muslims have gone through a traumatic period in the last several years. They have spent a lot of time in introspection. They have shown great wisdom and maturity in fending off severe and very brazen provocations. One hopes that it is this maturity that is now beginning to be reflected....

This brings me to my main plea—forgiveness. Forgiveness is the essence of both the Muslim and Hindu spiritual traditions. It is the only way out of the vicious and very debilitating grip of bad karma. It is our belief that one has to always pay individual or collective karmic debts in this or any subsequent incarnations or on the Day of Judgement. Both Hindu and Muslim spiritual traditions consider God as the greatest teacher, this world a great school, the events that involve us in this mayajaal (illusionary world) as messages.

 What could this Great Teacher be teaching us in this section of the school through the great Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi drama? Perhaps the all-important lesson of forgiveness. It may take us years, decades, centuries or millennia to learn this lesson. But learn we will. There is no escaping. God is a very determined teacher. We have the option to learn the lesson now. Let us exercise it.

 I have a special plea to make to fellow Muslims, a plea I have never made before. Many reasonable Hindu friends asked me in the last few years of strife: why can’t Muslims make a gift of the Ramjanamsthan to the Hindus? What is the big deal? I had just one answer. No gift could be or should be made at gunpoint. Give-me-this-gift-or-I-will-snatch-it- from-your-hands-anyway is no way of seeking gifts. A gift of Ramjanamsthan at that point would probably have been cowardice.

 But the situation has changed now. The gun has been taken away from the hands of our spiritually evolving brothers. The law of the land has asserted itself. ...

   Wallowing in despair would be pointless. How long will we go on commemorating the follies of our neighbours on every December 6? Nursing wounds is no sign of maturity. Wounds should be allowed to heal in a natural process. By wallowing in anger and self-pity, we will be making the same mistake as some of our Hindu brothers did.

Laws of Karma

   Laws of Karma sanction one great privilege. Either of the parties to a dispute can set both the parties free of the karmic debt by exercising their right to forgive the other party and thus grow spiritually. Every calamity is said to contain the seeds of an equal or greater opportunity. The demolition of the mosque gives us an opportunity to strengthen our stake in secularism, peace and democracy.

   The Babri mosque is no more. It has become a victim of Hindu-Muslim negative egos. Many precious lives have been lost in the process. The ideal solution would be that both the communities come together, forgive each other and mutually decide what to do about that piece of God’s land. Let us remember that there is no mosque there now. The memory of the mosque remains. The Babri mosque can never come back. Its demolition was perpetrated by a section of misguided Hindus referred to by the Supreme Court as criminals.

   But Muslims should never forget that the vast majority of Hindus clearly disapproved of it. They neither rewarded with votes in the subsequent elections the BJP which was apparently responsible for the demolition, nor the Congress which had started the whole dispute in the first place in a clear bid to garner Hindu votes.

Reconciliation

   If this mutual forgiveness and reconciliation does not take place — and if present Hindu and Muslim leaders are considered representatives of their respective communities, it is not likely to happen — ordinary people of both communities must make their presence felt and come out openly for peace at all costs. If that too does not happen, we Muslims should thank God for providing us with this unique opportunity to exercise our option of forgiveness and making a gift of a piece of God’s land on the specific condition that it be used for nothing but building a place of worship, so that its sanctity is maintained.

    I know this is not going to be easy. Forgiveness is never easy, except for the spiritually evolved. But I don’t think we have any other option. We have many things, important things to do. We just cannot afford to remain embroiled in inconsequential disputes. The renowned Islamic scholar, Late Maulana Ali Mian Nadwi had reacted to the opening of Babri Masjid locks the following day in these very sensible words: “Many mosques are in the possession of other people.” And indeed they are.

   There were many mosques in East Punjab of the pre-Partition days? But very few are left as mosques today? A Punjabi Hindu friend of mine complained of so many mosques having been converted into gurudwaras and temples. His Muslim friend (not me, some great soul) reacted: “But they are still places of worship. There is only one God, after all. No matter what you believe in, you cannot but worship the same God.” Amen. -- Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam

Allow me to quote the British novelist Martin Amis, writing about Persia in the Guardian: “Iran is one of the most venerable civilisations on earth: it makes China look like an adolescent, and America look like a stripling”. Iranians, aware of that history, are a proud people. They do not take kindly to being played around with, nor to seeing their country turned into a laughing stock. They do not like the memory of an election campaign that now seems like pure theatre, the expression of the sadistic whim of some puppeteer. So the line I take away from the important Friday sermon of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the two-time former President who believes that the Islamic Republic’s future lies in compromise rather than endless confrontation, is this one: “We shouldn’t let our enemies laugh at us because we’ve imprisoned our own people”. There’s been tragedy aplenty since June 12 — dozens of killings, thousands of arrests, countless beatings of the innocent — and I hope I belittle none of it when I say there’s also been something laughable. -- Roger Cohen

Saddam fell victim to his adventurism, but Arabs still revere him

Iraq has been living without Saddam for six years, but the dictator's shadow still haunts the land. He was and remains a hideous tyrant for some, but others recollect with nostalgia the halcyon days when suicide bombers did not blow themselves up in the streets and when Iraq was one of the most influential regional powers. -- RIA Novosti commentator Andrei Murtazin

Photo: Anti-American rally outside the US embassy in Baghdad, January 15, 1991.

On July 16, in a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the "central question" for the defense of the United States was how the military should be "organized, equipped -- and funded -- in the years ahead, to win the wars we are in while being prepared for threats on or beyond the horizon." The phrase beyond the horizon ought to sound ominous. Was Gates telling his audience of civic-minded business leaders to spend more money on defense in order to counter threats whose very existence no one could answer for? Given the public acceptance of American militarism, he could speak in the knowledge that the awkward challenge would never be posed. We have begun to talk casually about our wars; and this should be surprising for several reasons. To begin with, in the history of the United States war has never been considered the normal state of things. For two centuries, Americans were taught to think war itself an aberration, and "wars" in the plural could only have seemed doubly aberrant. Younger generations of Americans, however, are now being taught to expect no end of war -- and no end of wars. -- David Bromwich

Early on cracks developed between Black America and Muslim America, because of the attitudes of some people among us.  This has now become a gap, which is widening. Soon it will be unbridgeable. This is now being followed by the disillusionment of Muslims, who happen to be black. This is the biggest tragedy of our time. We are leaving a terrible legacy for the future generations. They will read the verse that we discussed before, then look out and see the reality in stark contrast to the fiction in their hands. For non-Muslims it will be a bonanza. With clear proof they will be able to point out the “the Grand Islamic Hypocrisy” which is unveiling in America. If we want to avoid this catastrophe, we have to act now. If we are able to stop this slide into ignominy and build the only real multiracial Islamic community in the world, we will have perfected the practice of the Message. We are standing at a crossroads. One road leads to disaster and the other to glory. Now, which one do we take? -- Waheeduddin Ahmed

Write-ups like these feed Western Islamophobia

Sept. 11, 2001, was not "the day everything changed," but the day that revealed how much had already changed. On Sept. 10, how many journalists had the Council of American-Islamic Relations or the Canadian Islamic Congress or the Muslim Council of Britain in their Rolodexes? If you'd said that whether something does or does not cause offence to Muslims would be the early 21st century's principal political dynamic in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, most folks would have thought you were crazy. Yet on that Tuesday morning the top of the iceberg bobbed up and toppled the Twin Towers. ...

Picture this: the place is Cairo, and two Egyptian women are eyeballing each other on the subway. One is dressed from head to toe in a burqa, and the other is wearing a hijab. The black clad woman asks the other why she is not wearing a burqa. The young woman points to her headscarf and says, “Is this not enough?” The woman in the burqa responds, “If you wanted a piece of candy, would you choose an unwrapped piece or one that came in a wrapper?” “I am not candy”, the younger woman replies. “Women are not candy”. And with that, Mona Eltahawy, a Muslim feminist who had worn the hijab for nine years, decided to ditch it altogether. -- Virginia Haussegger

(Photo: Rabiah Hutchinson at Manly Beach, Sydney, by Vanessa Hunter)

Religion can be traced back to the dawn of human civilization. The caverns of primitive men, wherein dead bodies were laid with a provision of food and weapons, suggest beliefs and practices which are unmistakably religious in character. It would seem that no sooner had man attained the stage of mental development, represented by self-consciousness, and started on the road to civilization, than his breathless wonder at the world around him gave way to speculation on his origin and destiny and on the power which created the world and sustains it. His thinking took the form of myth-making and his tools of thought were not concepts but symbols. He felt vaguely but intensely an infinite power at work in the world around him. This dimly-sensed power evoked in him the responses of fear and reverence, or worship. The urge to worship appears to have always been there, but man can worship only that which he believes to be both good and powerful, because of his own helplessness. Primitive man was slowly and painfully groping his way to the idea of religion. He was seeking, with his scanty resources, for an object which he could appease or revere and worship. No doubt, he worshipped crude objects or simple natural phenomena, but we must not forget that for him they only symbolized the supreme power at work in the universe. -- Allama Ghulam Ahmad Parwez

The first few chapters of this work comprise a historical discussion of the concepts of God and religion. It should not be taken for a, discussion of deen; nor is it an attempt to compare Islam with other religions and establish its superiority over them. From the observations made earlier in this Introduction, it should be clear that a comparison between Islam and the existing religions is out of question. Islam is a deen, or a way of life, which can be compared only with another way of life, and not with any religion, for religion as such, has nothing at all to do with the problems of human life on earth. This explains why the Qur’an does not present Islam as a rival to any religions. On the other hand, it asserts that this deen (system of life) shall ultimately prevail over all the man-made systems (9: 33). I would, therefore, entreat you, kind reader, not to treat this work as a book of religion; it should be studied only from one point of view and that is: whether or not the way of life that it expounds offers a solution to the grave difficulties and problems with which mankind is faced at present.

Today, all thoughtful men are disgusted both with materialism as well as religion (madhhab), for neither of these offers a way out of humanity's present predicaments. The only solution is through the deen that is expounded in the following pages. -- Allama Ghulam Ahmad Parwez

 Washington-based Fund for Peace, an Independent Research Organization has conducted a worldwide survey to index the failing states wherein Pakistan has been placed at 10th position in the International Community. Our country has been categorized as insecure, unstable and breeding ground for terrorism and spreading extremism that will affect everyone. ... The question that causes a stir is: are we a failed state in the real sense of the word? Good enough, the surveys / findings may prove us so, but is the ground situation really bad enough for us to be bracketed with tiny African states like Chad and Guinea? -- Ijaz-ul-Haq, former Minister for Religious Affairs of Pakistan.

Once, in a battlefield, the Prophet came across the corpse of a woman. Driven to anger, the Prophet exclaimed, ‘What sort of war was she fighting that she was killed?’ Then, he sent a message to the man who was leading the Muslim forces, Hazrat Khalid, instructing him to ensure that henceforth no woman, labourer or slave must be slain in the course of the war (Sunan Abu Daud 2669, Masnad Ahmad 17158, Sahih Bukhari 3015). The Prophet repeatedly forbade the killing of women and children during war, as is mentioned in the books of Hadith. According to one hadith report, the Prophet declared:

  ‘Do not slay any old, infirm person, nor any child or woman. Do not cheat in matters of war booty. Be kind and charitable. God loves those who are charitable.’ -- Maulvi Yahya Nomani (Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand)

All Muslims, even including those who champion the Hadith, accept the fact that after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, false hadith reports about or attributed to the Prophet Muhammad “mushroomed” into hundreds of thousands. The compilations that were made more than two centuries after the Prophet’s death were done after sorting through mountainous piles of individual hadith reports. Bukhari, for example, made a selection of some seven thousand traditions (including repeated ones) out of reportedly six hundred thousand he found in circulation – roughly one out of every one hundred. That means that he discarded all but a tiny fraction of the hadith in circulation as false. This factor alone leaves open the question whether his selection has been foolproof. -- Abdur Rab

Editor’s note: This is all the more important at a time when Jihadis are stealing our children away from us and turning them into sacrificial goats in their war of supremacy over other sects on the basis of patently concocted and fabricated Ahades. One of the funniest I found in a manifesto of a Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir-based terrorist organization Al-Badr claiming that the Prophet (PBUH) said that Jihad against India is Jihad-e-Afzal, that is greater in importance and reward than even the Jihad against the Meccan enemies of Islam that the Prophet himself fought. But apparently our children, some of them even the most highly educated and intelligent ones are not able to differentiate between a correct and a fabricated Hadees. The moment you ascribe a quotation to the Prophet, it acquires a certain sanctity in the eyes of a devout Muslim. However the knowledge of the fact that authentic compilers like Bukhari and Muslim discarded hundreds of thousands of Ahadees should help Muslims understand that they just cannot attach much sanctity to Ahadees unless they find that they are merely elaborating an injunction of the Quran while maintaining the same spirit inculcated into us through the Quran. This makes Mr. Abdur Rab’s study very valuable.

Much to my amusement, I find men very vehement in their fight for female "modesty and rights" in choosing to wear the burqa. But sadly, their voices seem to choke when it comes to family planning, triple talaq, a widow’s right to the guardianship of her minor children and other such matters. ...

I have heard since childhood that Islam is more about intent – to become a good, god-fearing human being – rather than the peripheral rituals that change from place to place and culture to culture. When, for instance, one is praying to god almighty, it is actually the connection with the supreme creator that is at the centre of it all. The way one prays is perhaps of lesser consequence but a certain method and manner have evolved over the years for the sake of uniformity and possibly even for the health benefits to be reaped from the exercise. -- Zohra Javed

The one defence of this inhuman practice of the Burqa, making Muslim women one-eyed creatures, is the Aya 53 of Surah Al-Ahzab. Obviously, the Maulana doesn’t seem to understand or is probably being mischievous when he ignores the fact that this Aya only came to teach good manners to the uncouth and illiterate Bedouins among whom Islam came to begin with and addressed them directly in the first instance.

… but to stretch it to justify the inhuman practice of putting women under the leash of the burqa is truly a travesty of Islam. It amounts to demeaning and belittling the great religion of Islam which came in the world to liberate and not to enslave humanity.

But the Maulana is so grateful to Allah for making him an ‘Islamic scholar’ that he doesn’t want to leave anything to Him. He makes his own lexicon of what is good and what is bad and in his own imaginary world keeps manufacturing a ‘unanimous’ opinion of ‘Islamic scholars’. -- Asad Farooqui