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Fasting may seem strange to non-Muslims but it is just one aspect of Ramadan, an important time of self-reflection

Ramadan is just a few days away and I will be joining many of the 1.6 million Muslims in the UK preparing to refocus for four weeks.

Following the lunar calendar means that the hours of fasting will be longer than they have been for many years, which is definitely a challenging prospect. But the four weeks of self-discipline is actually one that I always look forward to.

New Delhi, Aug 20: The Karnataka college that disallows its students from wearing either burqas or headscarves has found unexpected support amongst a section of Islamic scholars who say rules should be followed because Islam is not particular about imposing any dress code.

“Burqa is not a part of Islam. It is a part of culture, the culture that the people of the subcontinent have been following since ages. Nobody can enforce a dress code in the name of Islam. It is categorically un-Islamic,” renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan told IANS.

It is of course possible to take the position that the Congress made Partition possible through its many mistakes: the poorly timed Quit India movement itself, Nehru’s ill-considered comments at a critical juncture, the alienation caused by the failure to share power in Uttar Pradesh with the Muslim League, and so on.

At the end of this week, Muslims will start Ramadhan. Ramadhan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Islam uses a lunar calendar, that is, each month begins with the sighting of the new moon. Because the lunar calendar is about 11 days shorter than the solar calendar used elsewhere, Islamic holidays “move” each year. For more than a billion Muslims around the world, Ramadhan is a month of blessing marked by prayer, fasting and charity.

It has become something of a fashion for people today to constantly criticize and even condemn the traditional madrasa-educated ulema. Not just non-Muslims but many Muslims themselves regard the ulema as obscurantist, hopelessly outdated and a major cause of Muslim backwardness. While admitting the limitations and weaknesses of our traditional ulema in general, it was found to be their total rejection or condemnation very disheartening. After all, one of the most important services that the ulema provide is to transmit to the next generation the tradition of Islamic learning.

Mr. Jaswant Singh, a senior BJP leader from Rajasthan has written a book on Jinnah which is expected to be published shortly. He has, according to a news item on NDTV, called Jinnah a secular person and thrown responsibility for partition on Nehru. Earlier Mr. L. K. Advani had also described Jinnah as secular while visiting Jinnah’s mausoleum in Karachi and paid heavy price for it as RSS asked him to resign as president of BJP. And now Jaswant Singh, a fairly independent minded leader has called Jinnah a secular person.

In the 1950s and ’60s they just brushed past us. Even today, they evoke distinct images of romance. Muslim socials in Bombay cinema were like a gentle breeze of spring: magnificent havelis, scintillating fountains, men in sherwanis, women decked in ornate jewellery, music and poetry flowing like honey with umpteen shers and shayris belted out as repartees at every turn, the energising qawwalis; the gentle gesture of the palm being lifted to the forehead as the characters uttered Aadab in salutation and every couplet being appreciated with a Subhan Allah.

I often wonder whether people see me as a radical fundamentalist and terrorist Muslim who hides an AK-47 assault rifle underneath her jean jacket. Perhaps, they see me as the poster girl for oppressed womanhood everywhere. I am not sure which of the two it is.

I get the whole gamut of strange looks, stares, and covert glances. I wear the hijab, and it covers my head, my neck, and my entire body except my face and hands. I do this because I am a Muslim woman who obeys the commands of her Lord and believes that her body is her own private concern.

The edifice of Islam is based on five pillars: lman (belief), Salah (prayer), Saum (fasting), Zakat (poor-due) and Haj (pilgrimage to Ka’bah). These five pillars, which constitute the fundamental principles of Islam embracing all the essential factors of ethical laws, evolve into a practical code of life for humanity. They are unique and unrivalled in their spirit and actions and redolent of a spiritual flair for mankind.

It has become almost fashionable for a Muslim to say ‘Islam is in danger’. The religion whose literal meaning is peace is today seen as the root cause of terror and violence. The Muslim world cannot merely dismiss this as a fallout of a grand conspiracy against Islam by people of other faiths. It has failed to present the real essence of Islam and remained a mute spectator to many atrocities against humanity committed in the name cleansing the world of infidels.

This is a fact that no society can live long with injustice and double standard in giving justice to its people. Unfortunately our country India is fast turning into a society of that character. The attitude of police, administration and judiciary towards Muslim youths arrested in connection with terror cases shows the double standard of justice in the country.

Growing up in the eighties, one could not escape the slogan, “Pakistan ka matlab kya–La ilaha ilallah.” If not cried out at public rallies, it was written as graffiti. Though it rhymes and jingles, the motto never made sense to me, not even when I was fourteen. La ilaha ilallah is a Muslim’s creed. The idea that there is no god but Allah is an affirmation of monotheism, the Islamic concept of tawheed. How on earth could this be the definition of Pakistan? In fact, wouldn’t it be shirk to say that Pakistan, like other countries run by flawed humans, represented the oneness of Allah?

Since Kamala Suraiya nee Das and Obama bin Laden, there has been interest in what is called the `Muslim’ issue. We, the Hindu majority, are now looking curiously at people who have been our brethren for several centuries, who share our culture, traditions, food habits and certainly, history.

True understanding of the Quran cannot be possessed by the one with neither intellectual nor spiritual prerequisites, let alone the one who is impudent and insolent of religion.

Confusion and error in knowledge of Islam, as a religion and a civilization, are more harmful to Muslims than mere ignorance.

The mind which is ignorant is simply in a state of privation of knowledge.

Being ignorant in the simple sense of lacking in knowledge means one does not pretend to know. Here, one neither knows nor fancies that one knows religious truths.

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise is due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

In recent times the news of Muslim girls marrying non-Muslim boys is thought provoking and have taken a grave turn.

Muslim girls are openly showing their love for their lovers. Not only this, they are willing to tie the knot at any cost even if it means changing their religion.

These incidents are not few but in hundreds. This is another story that only a few incidents are highlighted in media. A few days back, the dead body of a Muslim girl was found in a park situated in Banjara Hills where she had gone with her non-Muslim husband.

Remember Chandra Mohan, the then Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana. He is the son of Bhajan Lal, a big gun in Congress political circles who had disowned his son because he had converted to Islam to marry another woman while his first wife was still alive. Chandra Mohan’s lady love was none other than a former legal luminary of Chandigarh, now named Fiza. The case of conversion to beat the bigamy law created a furore in both social and legal circles. Chandra Mohan, who had renamed himself Chand Mohammed soon had a change of heart and re-embraced the Hindu Dharma and reverted to his Hindu.

Israel Seeks Ways to Silence Human Rights Groups

In a bid to staunch the flow of damaging evidence of war crimes committed during Israel’s winter assault on Gaza, the Israeli government has launched a campaign to clamp down on human rights groups, both in Israel and abroad.

It has begun by targeting one of the world’s leading rights organisations, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), as well as a local group of dissident army veterans, Breaking the Silence, which last month published the testimonies of 26 combat soldiers who served in Gaza.

The fifteenth night of the month of Sha’baan, commencing with sunset, is a highly auspicious night. It is known as Shab-e-Baraat – tha Night of Deliverance from sins.

Authentic Traditions reveal that the account of a person’s activities of the last year is closed this evening and simultaneously fresh account is opened for the new year. In this night Allah passes of His Knowledge of every individual’s activities in the year ahead to the angels concerned.

Auron ka hai Payaam aur, mera Payaam aur hai, / Ishq key dardmand ka tarz-e-kalaam aur hai! (Iqbal. It is “The Pen” – al-Qalam – and education that will teach and change the world, the Qur’ān proclaimed, through gentle persuasion and reasoned discourse, and not through coercion or force symbolized by the sword.

The debate over women’s clothing is as old as Islam itself. Indeed, it may well go back further. Many of the injunctions found in the Qur’an, seen by Muslims as the word of God as revealed to the Prophet Mohammed in 7th century Arabia, definitively resolved earlier points of contention that threatened social order.

You’ve probably heard of Madrassas. The word, which means “schools” in Arabic, took on ominous overtones after 9/11, when Western pundits and politicians warned that extremist Saudi-financed religious schools were filling the education gap throughout the Muslim world but sending youngsters straight into the arms of Al Qaeda.

As soon as I arrived home, I felt a great relief, if that is the right word. I had been unable to return home to Gaza since before the 23 days of bombing of Gaza earlier this year, because of the ongoing siege. I am not sure that the word relief summarizes my intense and conflicting emotions. Mixed feelings of relief, happiness, but also disorientation, continued to overwhelm me. Gaza my beautiful home, yes, my beautiful home, my beautiful people, who are trying so hard to live. To continue from one day to another. Despite the odds, the hardships, the deaf ears of the world.

During the Nuremberg Trials, there is a story of a disturbing incident that occurred. The prosecution was finding it difficult to convict those accused of committing crimes against humanity. The suspected war criminals were either justifying their mass murder as acts of self-defense, or claiming to be helpless statesmen and soldiers only obeying orders. Someone then brought in the head of a Jewish victim preserved in a jar.

In a blunt memo to top military officials, a senior US official has called for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, detailing a growing tension between US and Iraqis forces, reported The New York Times on Friday, July 31.
“(It is time) for the US to declare victory and go home,” Colonel Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, wrote in a detailed memo submitted recently to senior US commander in Iraq General Ray Odierno.

Colonel Reese said the US troops have became a persona non grata in Iraq.