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Religious Freedom Is Indivisible: Muslims Should Seek it in Islamic Societies Too
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 The Swiss ban on minarets is having an echo in India. Abdul Sami Bubere of the Mumbai- based Sahyog Cultural Society is reported to have said: “The extremely provocative decision undermines the freedom of religion and principle of co- existence. The referendum is akin to tyranny of the majority. It will only encourage fundamentalism. The ban should be immediately lifted as it would serve the purpose of jihadis who misinterpret Islam.”
Though I won’t use such strong words, I fully agree with the sentiments and thoughts expressed in the above sentiment. The analysis that “it will only encourage fundamentalism” is also correct. It is actually happening. The fundamentalists are taking advantage of the situation created by the Swiss ban on minarets and the French ban on burqas (veils). But then the question arises in my mind, how come we get agitated only when our own religious freedom is at stake in non-Muslim societies. We do not worry when Muslims themselves, not to speak of non-Muslims, are not allowed religious freedom in Islamic societies. We were permitted to defend ourselves with arms (a form of Jihad, albeit a lesser form) because if we had not done so, people may not have been able to worship in temples, monasteries, churches, synagogues, etc., all those places of worship were God is remembered and God’s praises are sung. Renowned Pakistani scholar Javed Ahmad Ghamidi writes: “The Qur’ān 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: وَلَوْلَا دَفْعُ اللَّهِ النَّاسَ بَعْضَهُمْ بِبَعْضٍ لَهُدِّمَتْ صَوَامِعُ وَبِيَعٌ وَصَلَوَاتٌ وَمَسَاجِدُ يُذْكَرُ فِيهَا اسْمُ اللَّهِ كَثِيرًا (٤٠:٢٢) 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) Apparently we were allowed a lower form of Jihad, the Qital, that involves fighting, so that we could safeguard the human right of every individual to freely sing the praises of God in any kind of worship place he likes, be it a monastery, a temple, a church, a synagogue, or a mosque. But how come, we feel concerned only when it is a matter concerning a mosque and do not bother if states, particularly Muslim and avowedly Islamic states do not allow temples, monasteries, churches and synagogues to function or create hurdles in the way of non-Muslims singing the praises of God in their own way. Not only that. We have scholars who claim that while non-Muslims have perfect freedom to practice their religion in an Islamic state, (though in practice they are not mostly allowed that freedom), Muslims do not have that freedom. Once born to a Muslim parent, you are doomed for ever to be a Muslim or else. Well, your throat will be slit, no less. Indeed, there are “revered” ulema (scholars of Islam) in various schools of thought who say that if someone is seen so much as not attending Friday prayers, his throat should be slit. Sample the following: Those who do not attend Friday prayers “should simply be killed. Slit their throats!”: Deoband “A person greatly admires Hazrat Maulana Rashid Gangohi, the outstanding scholar who was one of the founders of the Deoband madrasa. The gentleman to whom I refer is a kindly soul, who can be depended upon for help by others. However, when in the course of conversation I chanced to remark that the most basic virtue lay in kindness towards others, he contradicted me. Kindness, he contended, was reserved for “pious, practicing Muslims”. As for others, they should be given a chance to mend their ways, after which “they would be Wajibul Qatal (liable to be killed)”. Another person I chanced to meet — a finance man, no less — feels that people who do not attend Friday prayers “should simply be killed. Slit their throats!” “Now, this kind of sanguinary verbal ferocity is very different from the traditions of quiet piety and gentle acceptance in which most Muslims were brought up. I claim no expertise to suggest whether this or the other is the ‘correct’ version of Islamic thinking. However, there are certainly many scholars who hold that this aggressive literalism, popularly but incorrectly referred to as ‘fundamentalism’, is a doctrinal innovation of relatively recent origin. It is very much a product of the linear, pseudo-logical thinking that has characterised our violent and intolerant age — an age that began with the full flowering of modern imperialism in the nineteenth century and whose baleful cultural and psychic responses have long outlived their origins. With this kind of intellectual legacy as a backdrop, what kind of political discourse is possible in Pakistan?” -- Salman Tarik Kureshi http://newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1795 Also, sample the following from a supposedly enlightened scholar of Islam: “Freedom is a neutral word. Accordingly, affixing it with religion would mean a liberty of a person either to have or not to have a religion, either to practice or not to practise, either to propagate or not to propagate, either to embrace or not to embrace, either to change or not change one’s own religion. If he decides to do so he has the freedom to do it without any interference of others. This is the meaning of freedom as it appeared in the above examples. “Is a Muslim allowed to enjoy such freedom? As a matter of fact, under Shariah law, a Muslim is not free to do so, no matter whether he is under Muslim rule or non-Muslim rule except with dire necessity. In fact the meaning of Islam itself, that is submission and surrender to the will of Almighty Allah (swt), is inimical to the vague meaning of freedom (cf.hurriah) in its absolute sense. Thus, a Muslim cannot enjoy freedom in respect of articles of belief (Iman) and practicing of pillars of Islam, (arkan al Islam) and observance of codes of life, because, these are essential of keep him a believer and a Muslim. He may enjoy a guided freedom with regards to those matters that do not fall under the basic and obligatory tenets and pillars of region.” – Freedom Of Religion in Shariah by Dr. ABM Mahboobul Islam of the International Islamic University of Malaysia. The poor orphans of war known as Taliban who ruled Afghanistan for a while have been considered bizarre in thinking that if someone does not have a beard of a certain length and doesn’t wear certain length of cloth or if a woman shows even an inch of skin, they are liable for various punishments. But I find that this is actually the mainstream of conservative thinking in Islam which is not being opposed by mainstream Islam. It is to the credit of Talban that by trying to implement these outlandish ideas of our ulema they have brought this out into the open. But for them people like me who were happy with the thought of a mainstream Islam, peaceful and pluralistic, would not have thought of studying the clerical literature at some length and trying to find out the truth. It is this obscurantist mindset that pervades the minds of a large number of Muslims. No wonder then that while some of us balk at the very thought of a Talibani Islam and just take it for granted that such an interpretation of Islam simply would not be acceptable to the mainstream, on a closer look we discover that actually the mainstream, at least in backward societies, does not have much of a problem. This also explains the popularity of Taliban in some parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. After all the Islam that is propagated by Saudi Arabia at the expense of tens of billions of dollars is not very different from the Talibani Islam. It is this Islam that is gaining popularity in growing sections of Muslims in mainstream, multicultural, Sufism-inspired Muslim societies like India and Indonesia too. I hope Mr. Abdul Sami Bubere of the Mumbai- based Sahyog Cultural Society and other people who are bothered about the Swiss ban on minarets or the French ban on burqa or India’s Hindu Right demanding the abolition of Muslim Personal Law will also express their disgust, if they feel it, over the lack of religious freedoms to non-Muslims and more so Muslims in so-called Islamic societies. So-called Islamic scholars go to great lengths to prove that Quranic dictates like “La Ikraha fid Deen” (There can be no compulsion in religion) or Lakum Deenakum waleya Deen (For you your religion and for me mine) have no meaning and relevance for the Muslims today and should be banished from our consciousness. Shame on such scholars!!! Until we start fighting for religious freedom in our own societies (of both Muslims and non-Muslims), our struggle for religious freedom in non-Muslim societies will be rightly treated as just an instance of Muslim hypocrisy. -- Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2451
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New Age Islam Battles Fundamentalists in Cyberspace
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 Sultan Shahin sees New Age Islam as part of a global effort by believers to reclaim Islam from the religious right, and address the questions and conflicts which confront believers in the twenty-first century. “Islam,” he argues, “is a spiritual experience; a system of beliefs through which believers seek to live a meaningful life. For the Islamists, though, religion is primarily a tool through which they seek power. In practice, they worship power, not Allah.”
In a recent essay, Shahin argued that the Islam of the neo-fundamentalists was in fact a “a completely new religion” theologically founded “on a wilful misinterpretation of the Islamic concept of jihad.” Electronic journals like New Age Islam reach out to a small, but influential, section of India’s Muslims: an emerging class of Muslim professionals and entrepreneurs who are finding that the traditionalist practices of the parents offer few solutions to the struggles of life. Islamists have been adroit at capitalising on their anxieties. Many of India’s jihadists — among them, the leadership of the Indian Mujahideen — came from urban middle class backgrounds and had received a privileged elite education. West and East Shahin says he hopes New Age Islam will give this new class a progressive voice. “When the media or the government wants to understand what Muslims think about something,” he says “they’ll always turn to some cleric or the other, not Wipro’s Aziz Premji or Himalaya Heath Care’s Meraj Manal or the eminent physicist Israr Ahmed. We need a wider Muslim engagement with public life.” Shahin’s own understanding of Islam was forged in both India and the West—much like the young audience New Age Islam addresses. -- Praveen Swami, The Hindu, New Delhi
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2444
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The Sectarian War among Muslims is extremely disgraceful: Maulana Nadeemul Wajidee
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Shameful, shocking, appalling are some of the words Muslims use across the country when faced with bloody fights for the possession of madrasa managements. In what he calls “a frank exposition”, Maulana Nadeemul Wajidee discusses the issue here but limits himself to criticising the greed and avarice of those who are fighting for control of madrasa managements. He seems to gloss over the ideological component of the clash. The fact is, to put it rather crudely and simplistically, the small minority of Wahhabi members in a madrasa management are gradually becoming very vocal and even aggressive in their bid to take over madrasas, come what may. So far the mainstream Muslims, passive as ever like any other mainstream, used to take this in their stride and allow the change of Imams, for instance, to take place, without a fight. Now they too, taken aback by the aggression and violence inherent in the Wahhabi actions, are responding, though they are still confused about the why and wherefore of these clashes. Hence the overt clash. The vast majority of Bareilwis, for instance, used to allow their Wahhabi neighbours to get Deobnandi Imams posted, without a murmur, unsuspecting of any foul play involved. India’s mainstream Islam, however, has before it the experience of Pakistan, where this shift took place, silently over decades, without people realising its import. The unsavoury events flowing from this development are making them quite apprehensive of what is in store for them if the Wahhabisation of Indian madrasas, indeed Indian Islam itself, already quite advanced, goes on at the present pace. As a Bareilly-based New Age Islam correspondent pointed out some time ago, this process is quite successful in Bareilly itself, a place which is considered a bastion of Bareilwi Islam, not to speak of other parts of the country. Maulana Wajidee’s article published below (Translated by Raihan Nezami) is nevertheless a pointer to the disquiet that growing clashes for takeover of madrasa managements is causing across the board. Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam 
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2391
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Why Should Any Muslim Object To Pranab Mukherjee Attending An Ahmadiya Convention?
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New Age Islam has received a press release from some organisation called Shariath Protection Council based in Chennai that says, inter alia: ... “But if the Hon’ble Minister (the Union Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee) intends to interact with Qadianis, taking them to be Muslims, then it is incumbent on the Council to correct his wrong assumption and to make known that, his participation in the said Convention, despite their protests, will wound the sentiments of Muslims, as a result of which Muslims will cease to take his Party as their ally.” I would have thought that we Indian Muslims are not Pakistanis and that we have not declared Ahmadis non-Muslim. In our view anyone is a Muslim who says la ilaha illallah Muhammadur rasoolullah (There is no god other than the one God and Muhammad is his prophet) and Ahmadis do that. Indeed, I had the personal experience of seeing their love for Prophet Mohammad and belief in his finality as a law-bearing prophet when I spent a few years in Suriname, South America where the majority of Muslims are Ahmadis. They differentiate between law-bearing prophets and people who are renewers of Islam (mujaddedeen) coming every new century or so and who are inspired by God to say things that they didn’t know they had in themselves. Yes, some Ahmadis do call Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani Saheb a prophet, albeit a non-law-bearing prophet below the status of law-bearing prophets like Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Ram or Krishna, etc. We have our differences with them and of course, the majority of mainstream Muslims do not agree with them. Indeed many Ahmadis, the so-called Lahori group of Ahmadis, led by as great a scholar of Islam as Maulana Mohammad Ali, too do not agree with them and merely consider Mirza Saheb a mujaddid (renewer of Islam). Indeed if we go by the logic of Ahmadis we would have to consider not only Mirza Saheb but also people like Ghalib, Iqbal, Shakespeare, Keats, Einstein, etc. as prophets. These people were indubitably inspired to say things that they did not know the source of. They only knew that they did not know the things they said in a clearly altered state of mind – in some cases like that of Ghalib, for instance, an altered state of mind produced by the influence of liquor. Similarly, some of them consider Mirza Saheb a reincarnation of Jesus Christ who is supposed to come back at the end of history. I am sure many Qadianis themselves consider this rather absurd. Yet, come to think of it, the difference is minor and more terminological. With Lahori group of Ahmadis, of course, there should be no difference at all. There have been several mujaddids in Islam and all of us do not have to go by their interpretations. We can just ignore them. After all, the main source of Islam is the Holy Quran and all Muslim sects abide by that, though there may be differences in interpretations. The difference with Ahmadis has turned into a deep and seemingly unbridgeable chasm. It happened like this. The Mullahs who had opposed the creation of Pakistan wanted a place for themselves in the politics of Pakistan once it got created. They latched on to the issue of a section of Ahmadis considering Mirza Saheb a prophet of sorts for the revival of their own political fortunes. They started riots against Ahmadis. The political leaders of so-called moderate, mainstream Muslims did not have the gumption to oppose their murderous activities. And finally decades later an ‘enlightened’ Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the then Prime Minister, succumbed to fundamentalist pressure and in the hope of gaining some political mileage with the ‘Islamist” marauders, at a very difficult time when he was engaged in a battle for political survival, declared the group non-Muslim. But it is important to remember that before Bhutto, who was executed by Islamists for being a murderer declared them non-Muslim under their pressure, the Ahmadis were a bona fide group of Muslims even in Pakistan, as, of course, they are in other parts of the world. I have always thought that we Indian Muslims, benefiting as we do from the composite spiritual ambience of multi-religious, multi-cultural India, are a different breed of Muslims than our brothers who have the misfortune to live in ‘Islamist’ Pakistan. But then come along statements like the one quoted above and it becomes clear that there are some among us who would have preferred to live in the spiritual disaster that is called Pakistan. They too would have probably liked to blow themselves up for the sake of bombing other Muslims praying in mosques around the country on account of minor ideological differences. That a top leader of the Congress party is attending an Ahmadi convention is good news. We mainstream Muslims, both Sunnis and Shias have ideological differences not only with Ahmadis but also with every other Muslim. Every Muslim Mullah considers every Muslims other than his own followers a Kafir. Kafir-manufacturing factories are the most productive in the Muslim world. Indeed Muslims do not have any other manufacture worth the name. No two Mullahs agree on the definition of a Muslim. Ask Justice Munir of Pakistan who investigated the bloody anti-Ahmadia riots in Pakistan of the 1950s: Backgrounder: The Mullah and the Munir Report http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=905 For Deobandis and other Wahhabis even a Muslim who doesn’t show up for a Friday prayer should have his throat slit. Should non-Muslim Indian politicians then stop meeting Muslims who do not go for Friday prayers? Why should this sickness of the Muslim community stop a non-Muslim political leader interact with Muslims whose views on the issues of the moment are most logical, suited to the times and in harmony with the spirit of Islam, even if we have some theological differences with them? Mirza Saheb interpreted Islam a century ago. Our Mullahs go by the interpretation given several hundred years ago or even a thousand years ago or more. Why should some of us threaten Pranab Mukherjee with the entire Muslim community not taking “his party as an ally” after this? This is totally absurd and irresponsible. What is this Shariath Protection Council that is bent upon the destruction of our syncretic Islam here in India? Or how representative of the Muslim community is Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam of Punjab, that I understand, is also running a campaign against Mr. Mukherjee’s visit? Who are the people behind this? What gives them the right to speak on behalf of the entire Indian Muslim community? Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2285
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New Age Islam gives a completely different face to the Muslim faith: KUDOS and a big THANK YOU
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Dear Mr. Sultan Shahin: I'm a Lutheran Christian in the United States, and I just wanted to send you kudos and a big "THANK YOU" for your publication, "New Age Islam". New Age Islam gives a completely different face to the Muslim faith, especially here in the United States where our conservative-dominated media portrays Islam as a medieval religion where its adherents go about blowing themselves up or beheading people willy-nilly. New Age Islam is a badly-needed publication which shows the world that Muslims are reasonable, rational, intelligent people who would like to live in peace -- just as Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. by and large are reasonable, rational, intelligent people who would like to live in peace. I don't think Christians would be happy to be associated with the ugliness which is a part of Christian extremism such as in Uganda, or Westboro Baptist Church (Fred Phelps' church in Topeka, KS), or the xenophobic Christian Identity movement in the Western Hemisphere but many of us seem all-too-willing to overlook these groups as "aberrations" while using a very broad paintbrush to paint all Muslims as "terrorists" based on the actions of a few. Thank you for this publication. Its Newsletter is one of the pieces of incoming email which I make a point of reading when I receive it. Mark Carpenter
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2239
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Dr. Zakir Naik Is Spreading Religious Hatred: Peace TV Is Meant To Disturb, Not Promote Peace
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 HE (Dr. Zakir Naik) SAYS that all non-Muslims will go to Hell no matter how good they are. Tell me is this statement good. My cousin expired in the 26/11 shootings. If someone says he will go to Hell, and boiling water will be poured on him only because he wasn’t a Muslim, won’t I feel bad? Now I am a very practical person, so I would just let it go but an emotional person can become very aggressive on hearing this, so instead of PEACE I am sorry to say ZAKIR NAIK IS KNOWINGLY OR UNKNOWINGLY PROMOTING ANYTHING BUT PEACE (on his Peace TV). A non-Muslim child expires; will he also go to hell? yeh kya logic hai, aap socho! Now he can say Muslims will go to Heaven. Why does he have to say that all others will go to Hell? Surely the merciful God is not a human being to have a trait like possessiveness. Surely God wants his children to b righteous only.
Ananya Menon ---- Dear Ananya Menonji, I am very sorry to know about your cousin. Rest assured he is a martyr and will go straight to Heaven. Dr. Zakir Naik is a suited-booted fanatic who has no understanding of Islam. He has the understanding neither of the spirit of Islam nor of its letters actually. It is a tragedy that thousands of Muslims follow him. Islam-supremacism, however, is not his invention. Millions of misguided Muslims think along those lines, without realizing that this renders us incapable of living in a multicultural, multi-religious society. Indeed, we Muslims are incapable of living in Muslim societies either. With our sectarian loyalties acquiring paramount positions in our minds, our life is Hell in this world and according to the Mullahs of rival sects in the world after as well. Please don’t take anything Zakir Naik or any other so-called Muslim tells you to heart. And please don’t confuse their ranting to Islam. You will hardly find a Muslim who is satisfied with calling himself a Muslim. He/she would be a Shia/Sunni/Wahhabi whatever but not Muslim. As these categories did not exist in the time of the Prophet, clearly none of them follows Prophet Mohammad’s Islam. You may recall that some Congress party Mullahs whom Gandhiji made presidents of the party in preference to the truly progressive Jinnah told him that he was a Mahatma and their leader but he would nevertheless go to Hell as he was not a Muslim. This is totally absurd. Islam teaches us that people would be judged according to their faiths, the faith brought to them in their local language by previous prophets of God. Incidentally this was the same faith brought to Arabs by Prophet Mohammad in their local language Arabic. Muslims have been repeatedly asked in the Quran to accord equal respect to all previous prophets as they do to Prophet Mohammad. Indeed there are many people who don’t have any faith or are incapable of developing any faith for a variety of reasons including age – you cited the case of a child. Will they all be sent to Hell? Apparently this is absurd. In Islam huququl ibad (your duties towards other creations of God) are paramount. You will be judged with this criterion. Our God is the same as your God, regardless of where and how you try to find him, and He is Rahmatullil Aalemeen (Blessing for the Universe), not Rahmatullil Muslemeen (Blessing for the Muslims). Love Him, and if you don’t believe in His existence, love His creation, love the Universe, love Life, Love Existence, and He will love you too. Once again I share your grief and pray for your martyred cousin. I am sure he is in Heaven, beyond the reach of any Mullah, suited and booted or in bare bhai ka kurta/ chhote bhai ka pyjama. Regards, Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2199
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Dear Zionist Sultan Shahin, Here is a real confession of a Zionist Jew
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Z T Minhas <ztminhas@yahoo.com> 30 November 2009 17:35 To: Alex James Cc: Sultan Shahin Editor@NewAgeIslam.com Dear Zionist Sultan Shahin Sultan Shahin is a pseudonym... this guy is a Hindu. Z T Minhas --- Alex James wrote: Dear Zionist Sultan Shahin, Apropos Confessions of a White jihadist Osama bin Laden. He was planted so that later this propaganda story could be published to give the illusion that there is an organization called Al-Qaeda whereas it is the CIA who is funding it. Here is a real confession of a Zionist Jew: Understanding the Synagogue of Satan, Zionism, Talmudism, Babylonian Cabbalism
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2172
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Jamiat-ul-Ulema knows it cannot push women back into burqas
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Cover up operation  It is natural for many to feel that the latest pronouncements from Deoband will push women further inside their dark holes. It will take the community back five centuries. But rather than arousing such fears, the panicky ranting of maulanas gives me hope. It would appear that they have heard the news. Muslim women are on the move. They are revolting even in the tiniest of towns.
Making use of the Islamic provision of choice given to them in the Koran, an increasing number of Muslim girls are refusing to marry boys of their parents' choice. They are even contemplating and a few succeeding, with sometimes fatal consequences, in eloping with boys of their choice. In many cases parents and the society at large has to accept their choices. In some cases the girls are even contemplating elopement with boys of other faiths. ... I asked one girl who was planning to elope with a Hindu boy, if she was aware that, being a Hindu her friend was ahl-e-Kitab, and she could marry him even under the provisions of Islamic Sharia. This girl of a UP town of just 2 lakh was knowledgeable enough to tell me that was not the case. Only Muslim boys can marry ahl-e-Kitab girls under the Islamic provision. I told her that this provision had been made at a time when girls couldn't stand on their own; but now you are an earning professional and will be able to fight for your right to follow the religion of your choice, so how would that Islamic provision apply to you today. She said she had never heard such "rational nonsense" and that the only way out for her was to elope and hope that she or her husband doesn't get killed by their relatives. In her view even a loving invitation for reception to celebrate their marriage could prove fatal, so she won't fall for it. The ulema are clearly rattled. This couldn't be happening. But it is. -- Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2077
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Does New Age Islam have a deliberate agenda of vilifying Islam?
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From: Juzar Bandukwala To: Sultan Shahin Editor@NewAgeIslam.com Dear Mr. Sultan Shahin, I read New Age Islam regularly, as I want to know what the world at large thinks of my community. I thank you for the same. I wrote you once for the bias I feel that exists in your news, against Islam. For example today one item is headlined: Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom There is a vast difference between Appeasing Islam and Appeasing Muslims. Unless you have a deliberate agenda of vilifying Islam. I say this because New Age Islam can turn off even “liberal" Muslims like me. This is the very block you should aim to reach, to make our community more responsive to Western ideas and ideals. Sincerely Yours J.S.Bandukwala, Baroda, Gujarat, 21 Oct 2009 --- Dear Mr. J.S.Bandukwala Thanks very much indeed for taking time out to apprise me of your feelings. The headline in question is not of my making or that of other editors at New Age Islam who decided to include this item in the compilation. New Age Islam has merely informed you of the publication of such an article on the web. I am quoting below the full article, exactly as it appeared along with its url. Please see for yourself. I think it is important for us to be, at the very least, aware of what is going on both fronts, on the anti-Islam, anti-Muslim as well as the fundamentalist-obscurantist Islamic front, though, of course, as you well know, they do not constitute the main body of our work. Believe me, I am as offended as you are with either of these group of articles and news items. Do you think I like reading about Muslim women being whipped by Sharia courts for wearing Bras or for drinking a glass of beer or ten-year-old girl children being ordered by a Saudi Sharia court in the hub of Islam to go back to their 80-year-old “husbands”, or Saudi obscurantists justifying child-marriage by maligning our beloved prophet, and so on? The only difference between me and several of New Age Islam readers who don’t like reading these stories and complain is that I think it is important that we know what we are doing and what others are saying about us, so that some of us are probably inspired to do something about it, both in terms of dispelling the disinformation or misinformation and reforming ourselves by going back to our simple roots, minus the sophistry of fiqh which probably is responsible for much of our misery. If we know people are spreading misinformation or disinformation about Islam, whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims, and what points are they making, we might be able to give them the correct information. This may not help as far as these people are concerned, as most of them may be spreading disinformation deliberately, knowingly, but anything put out on the net stays there for a considerable time, is copied by others, etc. and may keep neutral readers from getting influenced by disinformation. As in the case of Hazrat Ayesha story, for instance, we have repeatedly published research work detailing why she simply could not have been six-year-old when she got married to the Prophet. Please see: |
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Why are ulema still afraid of Sir Syed?
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 Demeaning Sir Syed to glorify the clergy
From: Former union minister, Arif Mohammad Khan To: Sultan Shahin Editor@NewAgeIslam.com My piece on Sir Syed was published on 19th October in Times of India. It appears to have ruffled the feathers of our clergy. Mr. Burhanuddin Qasmi has reacted violently accusing Sir Syed of having been rewarded by the British in cash and kind. His rejoinder appeared on Aligarh Forum. I have sent a small reply. You may find it interesting; I am forwarding the whole thing to you. On Aligarh Network: An Angry Rejoinder This was to counter the Fatwas that had been issued by many Indian ulama; ulama of Deoband were the pioneers, stating that the Indian subcontinent had become a Darul Harb, the land of war. This political overture of Sir Sayyid was favourably received in the British ruling circles in India as well as in Britain and was rewarded both in cash and kinds. And this political deviation of Sayyid Ahmad Khan was the root of all differences between him, the founder Mohamedan Anglo-Oriental College in 1857 which later became Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Maulana Muhmmad Qasmi Nanautwi founder of Darul Uloom Deoband which later became an ideologue for composite nationalism in India and a pure Islamic learning centre in the sub-continent. – Deobandi Aalim M. Burhanuddin Qasmi How the clergy wanted Sir Syed beheaded Conscious of cleric hostility Sir Syed offered not to have any role in matters of religious instruction in the college and invited leading clerics to prepare the syllabus. Maulana Qasim Nanotvi and Maulana Yaqoob of Deoband shot down the proposal saying they cannot associate with an institution which will have Shia students on the campus. Maulana Hali in his biography of Sir Syed says that 60 maulvis and alims had signed fatwas accusing Sir Syed of disbelief and apostasy. There was total consensus among the Indian clerics, only divine approval was missing. Maulvi Ali Bakhsh did the needful and travelled to Mecca and Medina on the pretext of pilgrimage and secured a fatwa calling for beheading of Sir Syed if he repented not and persisted with his plan to establish the college. – Former union minister, Arif Mohammed Khan.
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1963
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Bangladesh uncovers Pakistan’s role in Arming India’s North-East rebels
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 INVESTIGATIONS into the 2004 Chittagong arms haul have taken a sensational turn with the revelation by a former Bangladesh intelligence chief that a Dubai- based business house owned by a Pakistani, and the high commissioner of an “ unnamed country”, (obviously Pakistan) smuggled 10 truckloads of arms for the Ulfa into the country through a government- owned jetty. They did this with the connivance of high officials of the Bangladeshi intelligence and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s son. -- Mail Today Bureau in New Delhi
------ Backgrounder Pakistan shifts proxy war to India's east The ISI built up a substantial presence in several areas of Kolkata and almost all districts of the state bordering Bangladesh - with the Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district in the north receiving particular attention. All this was dramatically brought to light in January 1999, when Delhi police arrested Syed Abu Nasir, a Bangladeshi who had crossed over from Bangladesh to bomb the US Embassy in Delhi and the US Consulate General in Chennai. He reportedly revealed during interrogation that he and his team of nine had gathered in Kolkata in December 1998. From there, the three Indian members had been sent to Siliguri to establish a support base in collaboration with ISI agents stationed there, while the six "Afghans" - a generic term used to signify Afghans as well as various Arab and other terrorists trained in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda - went to Chennai. The three Indians who went to Siliguri were subsequently arrested while the six "Afghans" managed to disappear. The ISI's activities in the area attracted further attention during the Kargil war when a blast in a train in North Jalpaiguri station on June 24, 1999, directed at a group of soldiers travelling to Kashmir, killed two of them and injured 16. There were several other attempts to sabotage the movement of troops and equipment from north-eastern to north-western India. These incidents clearly underlined the reason for the ISI's activities in Siliguri. North-eastern India's sole direct land link with the rest of the country passes through the subdivision, particularly the narrow Siliguri-Islampur corridor. -- Sultan Shahin in Asia Times Online on February 6, 2002
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1419
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Secularism wins in Indian elections
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Why Muslims returned to Congress?  The most heartening news is the decimation of all exclusivist trends among Muslims. Muslims have sealed the fate of almost dozen-odd Muslim outfits in this election. Not one of them has been able to even make a mark. Muslims have given thumbs down to the politics of exclusion, negativism and denial of our own shortcomings. Many of them were created just before the elections and tried to incite Muslim sentiments over what they claimed was "targeted harassment of the minority in the name of terrorism", thus seeking to deny the fact that some of our youth are indeed turning to terrorism under the influence of so-called Islamist terrorist outfits and their ideology of radical Jihadism in the name of Islam. The growing influence of Wahhabis in the community is helping the process. But instead of addressing these issues and making amends, some Muslims, notably some so-called ulema, sought to simply blame the government and try their hand at exclusivist politics. It is gratifying that the community has not heeded them and has instead returned to inclusive politics and has largely voted along with other communities for the greater good of the country, keeping the nation’s best interest in mind.
Indian Muslims have clearly returned to the Congress fold. But how have Sonia/Rahul/Priyanka/Manmohan wrought this magic? asks Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1408
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Taliban: The battle for Pakistan
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 Secular cowardice is not a new phenomenon in Pakistan. The founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had said on August 11, 1947, in the constituent assembly of Pakistan in Karachi: 'You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state.' But as Pakistan's renowned columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee recalls: 'Deliverance into the hands of the theocrats came a mere six months after the death of Jinnah, the delivery made by the man who had succeeded him as the leader of his nation. The Objectives Resolution was adopted on March 12, 1949 by the constituent assembly of Pakistan, proposed by the Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan. It clearly and unambiguously declared that religion had much to do with the business of the state. There could be no recovery, as history has proven over the past 60 years.'
No one should forget the swiftness with which the Afghan Taliban rose in the 1990s to capture Kandahar and Kabul in one fell swoop. Surely the Taliban are not going to stop at Islamabad. Conquering Pakistan is only the first step in their Long War aims. While Israel and America are going to be their main long-term targets, the first country to bear the brunt will be India. Already there are reports of over a hundred Taliban fighters having infiltrated into the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. This also speaks of collusion between the Taliban and elements in the Pakistan Army. And this is what makes the American strategy for containing Taliban flawed. For they want to use the same Pakistan Army to fight the Taliban. If he could have relied on the army, former president and army chief General Musharraf would have succeeded, at least to some extent, in turning the country around in the direction of what he called 'enlightened moderation.' -- Sultan Shahin
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1402
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Changing Muslim Psyche: Allah Hafiz vs. Khuda Hafiz
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 Ask them to feel grateful to God that you are not living in Pakistan where your mother would be asking you to pray at home and not go to mosques for fear of being blown up by suicide bombers; ask them to feel grateful that you are living in the only non-Muslim majority country in the world which allows you to organise your personal life in accordance with Muslim Personal Law; that your constitution guarantees you equal status; that no party can come to power at the Centre which has not got your votes: and you are immediately branded a Hindu agent.
This is the condition of a community whose religion exhorts it to live with an attitude of gratitude even in the direst of circumstances, to start every prayer with Al-Hamd (Praising God). God's bounties are so many and so great that we will not finish recounting them even if we spend an entire lifetime doing that. Islam-supremacism, contempt for other religions, are our mantras. We forget that our scriptures ask us to revere equally as Prophet Mohammad all the 124,000 prophets that preceded him in all parts of the world. This is an essential requirement for the Islamic faith. Inner spirituality has been sucked out of our religion with the onset of Wahhabism in a big way. Under US protection, Saudi Arabia is spending tens of billions of dollars for the last 35 years in spreading a desiccated, arid, desert version of Islam, devoid of all spiritual values. The Islam to which we had been introduced in the sub-continent by our saints is dead and gone. People may still visit Sufi shrines, but the inclusiveness that it entailed is no longer there. -- Sultan Shahin
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www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1383
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