ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 1In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

32 Pages Rs. 20 Bangalore English MonthlyNovember 2014 Vol. 27-11 No. 335 Muharram/Safar 1436 H

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Can the Waqf Board be Trusted?

By A Staff Writer

Bangalore: Can Karnataka Board of Awqafs be trusted as an honest custodian of the vast number of waqf properties in the State?The Muslim Orphanage, premier waqf institution has alleged in its 100thAnnual Report that the Board-appointed Administrator of the Orphanage who demitted office on November 23, 2013 handed over a sum of Rs. 18,000 only towards cash on hand to the new Executive Committee which took over the affairs of the over 100-year old institution. Mr. S. S. Rahman, who presented the Report at the Annual General Board Meeting on October 25, said that on verification of the Audited Report for the 2011-12, it was observed that there was cash balance of Rs. 100,733 out of which Rs. 70,990 is ‘cash on hand’ of the Orphanage and the same was neither handed over nor brought to the notice of the new committee.The published Reports alleges that the then administrator, Mr. Ismathullah Khan, without the knowledge and permission of the

Karnataka State Board of Awqafs had transferred and deposited a sum of Rs. 65 lakh to the Amanath Cooperative bank, Shivajinagar knowing fully well that the Bank was under moratorium from the Reserve Bank of India. He said the amount was withdrawn from

Indian Overseas Bank. He said this large amount of money faces great risk as the Bank was facing uncertain conditions. If the latest report were to be believed, in case the Amanath Coop Bank is taken over by the Canara Bank, the depositors would lose 38% of their deposits as per the Canara Bank’s conditions for takeover. The larger question that needs to be asked is: Should the waqf institutions such as Orphanages be penalized with huge deduction of their deposits

By Pervez Bari Bhopal: In a significant judgment, a bench of three judges of the Supreme Court of India has overruled a high court order restraining issuance of ‘fatwa’ by Dar Al-Qaza and Dar Al-Ifta in Bhopal.The judgment is bound to have a far reaching effect as it would deter the Indian judiciary at various levels from interfering in the religious matters of Muslims. The order is expected to give relief to Muslims.In an earlier judgment, in the case of Vishwa Lochan Madan, the Supreme Court had held: “In our opinion, one may not object to issuance of fatwa on a religious issue or any other issue so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of individuals guaranteed under the law.”The Supreme Court said the high court judgment shall be treated as substituted by the above law laid down by it.The three-member bench comprised former Chief Justice M. Lodha, Justice Kurian Joseph

and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman.“A fatwa is an opinion, only an expert is expected to give. It is not a decree, nor binding on the court or the State or the individual. It is not sanctioned under our constitutional scheme. But this does not mean that existence of Dar Al-Qaza or for

that matter practice of issuing fatwas are themselves illegal,” the premier court clarified.The judgment said it is informal justice delivery system with an objective of bringing about amicable settlement between the parties. It is within the discretion of the persons concerned either to accept, ignore, or reject it. However, as the fatwa gets strength from the religion; it

causes serious psychological impact on the person intending not to abide by that.It may be recalled here that one Mohammad Zahir Khan Koti, a resident of Jabalpur, in 2009 had filed a PIL in the MP High Court alleging that Dar Al-Qaza and Dar Al-Ifta are indulging in “the illegal activities of

declaring ‘Talaq’. He had prayed that these two Islamic institutions be declared illegal and unconstitutional and be restrained from adjudicating matrimonial disputes.”The high court in its order dated August 14, 2012, disposing off the PIL writ petition approved the role of conciliation and arbitration being

performed by Dar Al-Qaza when invited to do so by both the warring parties. However, certain part of the judgment though not forming part of the operating order seemed to imply that Dar Al-Ifta shall not render any fatwa and that now stands clarified/substituted by the Supreme Court in the Appeal filed by the Masajid Committee, Bhopal. n

Supreme Court Lifts Restrictions on Issuing ‘Fatwa’

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 2

International Seminar on Ibn Sina inaugurated at AMU

Aligarh: Inaugurating a three-day International Seminar on “Life and Contribution of Ibn Sina” at the Kennedy Auditorium, Aligarh Muslim University, Mrs. Sadia Rashid, President, Inter-national Association for Unani Medicine and Chancellor, Hamdard University,

Karachi (Pakistan) said that Ibn Sina studied, researched and wrote about almost everything from physiology to psychology, physics to philosophy and mathematics to music. Mrs. Rashid pointed out that in this age of specialization, “we can only gaze in admiration at the mere idea of the learned men of old age, who knew no such boundaries to their curiosity or learning”. She expressed her deep sense of gratitude to the

Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences and the Aligarh Muslim University. Dr Ahmad Mahmoud Al Hussein

from Jordan said that it was shocking that people in Middle East countries have forgotten the contributions of the Father of Medicine, Ibn Sina. Justice Salahuddin Siddiqui, Chief Justice of Nepal stated that it is unfortunate that people in Nepal are ignorant about the works of Ibn Sina. He said it was surprising that Ibn Sina laid emphasis on the importance of physical exercises for healing, several hundred years ago and the

concept of ‘Yoga’ is now being popularized as a healing process. Prof. Zillur Rahman, organising chairman of the seminar said that to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the compilation of Ibn Sina’s “Kitab Al-Qanun”, the Ibn Sina Academy, Aligarh, decided to hold an international seminar. A special award of Rs 25,000 was given to Mohd Khalil, Editor, Monthly Science for promoting Unani medicine.

Survey of Muslim Households in TN

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) 980-1037

Poverty Afflicts over Half the People,One-Third live in Rented Houses

By A Staff Writer Chennai: A house-to-house survey of 164,415 Muslim families in Tamil Nadu has found high incidence of poverty, need for career guidance for students and healthcare for the sick and assistance for the disabled.The survey was carried out by the United Welfare Organization (UNWO) in 10 of the 32 districts in the State i.e., Ramnad, Trichy, Tirunelveli, Dindigul, Karur, Thiruvarur, Pudukottai, Erode, Madurai and Cuddalore.The survey highlights available through Chennai-based OMEIAT Journal, indicate that over 53% families are in the low-income category, 7.32% are economically well-off (i.e., income being more that expenditure) and around 39% families have incomes equivalent to expenditure. It says, exactly one-third of the families surveyed live in rented accommodations. The survey puts the number

of students who require career guidance and counseling and scholarship number around 4,900. A little over 10,300 sick

individuals were such that they cannot afford medical treatment. There were 1,402 handicapped

persons among the surveyed people. There were 302 divorced women while 1,077 women reported that they were deserted

by their husbands. It put the number of destitute (who went without food, clothing and shelter and virtually without any family support) were 1,160.The journal did not reveal when the survey was conducted. For more details Contact: United Welfare Organistion, 10/39, First Floor, Anaikar Complex,

M. V. Badran Street, Periamet, Chennai-600003, Ph: 044-4204-1130 n

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UPdate

Unique Gandhi Jayanti at ShaniwarwadaSeat of the Peshwa rulers in Pune sends out message of peace.

By Malika Mistry The Gandhi Smarak Nidhi of the Gandhi Bhavan, Kothrud, Pune, celebrated the ‘Gandhi Week’ by organizing a number of programmes in the historic

city in the first week of October coinciding with Gandhi Jayanti on October 2. The organizers said it was imperative to disseminate the Gandhian thoughts and philosophy in the younger generation as communal forces have become stronger and spreading hate. They were referring to recent onslaughts against innocent Muslims in and around Pune without any provocation. It may

be noted that the Hindu-Rashtra Sena, a criminal outfit suddenly attacked the innocent Muslims in Hadapsar, Bhosari and Pune City. Their shops were looted, Masjids and Madarasas were attacked, bakeries were burnt. An innocent Muslim youth, an IT engineer

from Solapur, the only bread-earner of his family, was murdered by this gang.Gandhi Smarak Nidhi has decided that Pune city and its surroundings must be free from communal d i s t u r b a n c e s .

With this objective, it organized a Shanti Yatra or Peace March on 2nd October in the heart of the city. It started from Senapati Bapat (a freedom-fighter’s statue) at Alka Talkies and ended at the Shaniwarwada, the official symbol of Pune Municipal Corporation and the historical and official residence of the Peshwas,

the rulers of Maharashtra, in the past. (It is useful to be reminded that Shaniwarwada was built on the land owned by the Bade Shaikh Salla dargah which is located at the very entrance of

the Wada. Even today, Pune Municipal Corporation pays some annual rent to this dargah by way of token).A number of NGOs participated in the Shanti Yatra. Some volunteers

from Germany and the United States also joined. Dr. Kumar Saptarshi, President, Maharashtra Gandhi Smarak Nidhi, purposely organized this march on this route.

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 5

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Women warned anew: Hands

off Cars!Riyadh: Saudi Kingdom’s Interior Ministry has warned that it would punish women who drive, and those men who support them, as the one-year anniversary approaches of a nationwide campaign calling on the Saudi government to lift the ban on women driving.The campaign was launched on Oct. 26 last year.

“Female drivers in Saudi Arabia will be dealt with strictly,” said a statement released by the ministry. “The ministry will apply regulations firmly against those who violate the country’s laws,” it said.Speaking to Arab News, Hoda Abdulrahman Al-Helaissi, a female member of the Shoura Council, supported the move to allow women to drive, but said this was not the right time. “We are not fully prepared as Saudi society is undergoing massive changes on all fronts. There is still substantial resistance from a huge segment of Saudi society, who do not want women to use cars on the

roads.” Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, the m i n i s t r y ’s spokesman, was quoted as saying on an online news website that people “should not undermine

the Kingdom’s social cohesion by spreading discord ...”A Saudi woman said that the campaign has been enlisting women willing to take cars onto the roads on Oct. 26, 2014. Last year, the ministry issued similar warnings to the organizers of the campaign, which saw women posting videos of them driving on roads across the Kingdom.Many activists are using social media to promote the campaign. They have encouraged women to post pictures of them driving, on Twitter, YouTube and WhatsApp.(Reported by Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Arab News)

French Company Launches Kit to Detect Presence of Pork in MealParis: A French company has developed a new kit which went on sale in the country to detect the presence of pork or alcohol in various produce. The 'Halal Test' is aimed at the Muslim market and claims rapidly to detect the presence of pork in any meal. Priced at €6,90 each or €125 for a packet of 25, a device, simply called "Halal Test, the device consists of a strip which the consumer must put into a glass of warm water containing a sample

of food. After a few minutes, the test will then show one of two options: either a single bar for a negative test or two bars for a positive one, which means there is alcohol or pork present. "The appearance of two red lines means that we have pork present," says Abderrahmane Chaoui, one of the product's creators. The product is the brainchild of Chaoui, 25, and his classmate, 27-year-old Jean-François Julien. The 'Halal test' can be used not only with meals but also with beverages, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Eventually,

the company, despite being in its germinating stages hopes to modify the test so that it is possible to recognize whether the animal

from which the meat was obtained was slaughtered according to Islamic ritual, "based on blood oxygenation." This means that the test would truly become a test

to see whether all meat was halal, rather than just directly outlawed. Additionally, at the beginning of 2011, sausages labeled as Halal by company Knacki Herta had to be withdrawn from supermarkets after tests demonstrated the presence of pork. Food falsely labeled as Halal has been at the centre of some scandals in France in recent years. France's Muslim population reached an estimated 6.5 million in 2013 and there is likely a big market for such a product, especially in the wake of Europe’s horsemeat scandals. n

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 6

Survey reveals Muslim children outnumber Christian Kids in British Cities

London: The number of Muslim children in several British cities is fast eclipsing that of Christian children, according to birth rate statistics that reveal the country's significant demographic change. The Daily Mail reports that the latest statistics, extracted from the 2011 Census, shows that of 278,623 young people in Britain's second largest city, Birmingham, 97,099 registered as Muslim compared to 93,828 as Christian. Meanwhile in Bradford, 52,135 children, forming 45 percent of

the total, are Muslim, compared to 47,144 Christians. Leicester has 22,693 young Muslims compared to 18,190 Christian children. The London borough of Tower Hamlets has the biggest difference, with 62 percent of children being raised Muslim. Christians in the borough are significantly outnumbered by 34,597 to just 8,995. Sughra Ahmed, president

of the Islamic Society of Britain, told the Daily Mail that those numbers are likely to grow.

(www.ummid.com/news)

Muslim Scholars and Imams Blast ISISWashington: Over 120 Muslim scholars and Imams from around the world have signed an open letter addressed to the "fighters and followers" of the Islamic State (IS), denouncing them as un-Islamic and explaining to them the true meaning of 'Islam' .The letter is written in Arabic, and will be translated in English. It uses heavy religious texts," Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Washington told the Religious News Service.Quoting from Quran and its verses, the letter last fortnight blasts the extremist ideology of the militants as the hardliner group continues to baffle the world with its heinous crimes of beheading, mass killing.The letter explains in detail that the teachings of Quran and Hadiths of Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) ought to be interpreted as a whole, and Muslims should refrain from picking and choosing verses to suit their personal opinion and outlook, particularly while issuing fatwas.It also further explains that Islam prohibits torture and the killing of

innocents or other.The authors of the detailed letter also raised their objection on how the IS declared itself as a caliphate, with the support of only a few thousand extremist supporters. "It is forbidden in Islam to declare a

GCC Vows Tough Steps to Curb ‘Media Extremism’

Jeddah: The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) an economic alliance of six Middle Eastern countries—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman, are stepping up their awareness campaigns to alert young people about the dangers of extremism. According to Kuwait’s Information Minister, Sheikh Salman Al-Hamoud Al-Sabah, the new ‘Gulf Awareness’ programs would adopt a different approach with the aims of moving youth away from extremist and harmful views.Al-Sabah’s remarks followed a meeting of the Gulf information ministers that concluded in Kuwait recently. The meeting discussed plans for combating extremism. Terrorism in the media has become a global phenomenon, he said.A recent meeting of interior ministers of the European Union has stressed the need to boost monitoring mechanisms against media networking sites that support terrorism, he pointed out.Gulf authorities will support educational and media awareness

campaigns to prevent terrorist ideologies and extremist thoughts from spreading across the Internet via social networking sites.GCC countries plan to launch educational and media awareness campaigns that challenge terrorist ideologies, and defuse extremism that is today spreading across the Internet through social networking sites.While ruling out any censorship measures on social networking sites, the minister said GCC telecommunication companies would be required to develop accurate monitoring systems.He said the conditions in the region have called for reviewing priorities and focusing on the phenomenon of extremism.During the meeting, the GCC ministers also agreed to a proposal submitted by the Saudi cultural minister to “employ awareness and educational measures to challenge extremist and terror-related thoughts, an issue that has been threatening all members of the Gulf society.” n

caliphate without the solidarity of all Muslims," they write.The letter is signed by renowned Imams and Muslim scholars from around the world, including from the Pakistan, UK, Syria and many other countries. n

First Muslim Captain in Boston Police Dept.

The Boston Police Department has promoted its first Muslim to Captain. In his new role, Haseeb Hosein wants his officers serving as ambassadors for the Department by going to schools and reading to children. As Boston police Captain Haseeb Hosein, a former science teacher and a firm believer in the power of reading, assumes leadership in Mattapan as the department’s first Muslim captain, he plans to have his officers walking not only the streets, but school hallways.Hosein’s promotion makes him the highest-ranking Muslim in the department and one of three minority captains. “The promotion to captain of Haseeb Hosein goes directly to my commitment of making the police department more reflective of the community we serve,” Police Commissioner

William Evans said in a statement. “It is both historic and an honor for me to promote the first black Muslim captain to my command

staff.” As the department’s first Muslim captain, he said, he feels he can inspire young Muslims to join the force and serve as an ambassador for a faith that is often viewed negatively. “I can be a voice to denounce violence, and let people know that the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are just like them,” Hosein said. “I hope to be that voice that speaks out loud.” n

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 7sPecial rePort

Love & Peace Makes All Faiths Go Around!The course on “Islam and Inter-Faith Relations” organized by the Henry Martyn Institute was not just about people talking about religion, but was also a practical demonstration of recognizing values such as honesty, kindness, peace and love, embedded in all faiths and religions.

By A Staff Writer Located in a quiet, leafy campus in the suburbs of Hyderabad is the Henry Martyn Institute (HMI), a centre for interfaith relations and reconciliation between people of different faiths and cultures. It offers a variety of academic and practical community-based programmes and projects.This September, the HMI organized a week-long course on Islam and Interfaith Relations. The 40-odd participants came from various parts of India. I was fortunate to participate in the course, which helped me learn much—most importantly that no matter what faith each one of us may follow, what really matters is how we are as human beings and how we relate to each other and the rest of creation.The HMI arranged for a batch of excellent resource people, including Gautam Siddharth, a journalist with theTimes of India, New Delhi, Maqbool Ahmed Siraj, Executive Editor of the Bangalore-based Islamic Voice, Shaikh Imdad, an exponent of classical Carnatic music from Hyderabad, Sister Anjali of the Brahma Kumari Centre in Hyderabad, Nanak Singh Nishtar, head of the Hyderabad-based Sikh Centre for Interfaith Relations, Victor Edwin of Vidyajyoti, a Catholic seminary in Delhi, Nayeem Siddiqui from the Sufi School, Deepti Rupani from the Sadhu Vaswani Mission, and Maulana Fayaz Omeri, who is associated with the New Delhi-

based Centre for Peace and Spirituality. A team of women from the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind handled topics on women’s status in Islam and women’s rights. Other resource persons included T.R Ganesh from the Ramakrishna Muth, Hyderabad, Nuzhath Syed, a freelance writer based in Hyderabad, Gjnanam Shreenivas from the Hyderabad-based Osho Mevlana Centre, and Faraaz Mohiuddin, an IT professional from Hyderabad. In-house resource persons from HMI included Dr Packiam Samuel, Director of the HMI, Dr Surya Prakash, chairman of HMI, Dr M M Abraham, associate director, Academic Department, HMI, Maulana Abdul Kareem, teacher of Arabic at the HMI, Asma Nuzhath, HMI’s Urdu teacher and Qadeer KhwajaA unique aspect of the course was the daily devotion. Each morning, participants gathered in a hall to remember God, pray or share spiritual insights. The devotion was led by resource persons from different faith backgrounds. They spoke on the importance of human values, love, kindness, compassion, brotherhood and unity from their own spiritual traditions. That was the perfect start to a day packed with sessions on various topics.Dr Packiam Samuel, speaking on “Reflections on Interfaith Dialogue”, recollected his days in the seminary where he had studied, and how, over the years, his interactions with people from different faith backgrounds had strengthened his

conviction in the need for dialogue. His heart-to-heart dialogue with Faraaz Mohiuddin was delightful, providing participants with new insights on working together with people of different faiths.Simple and to-the-point was Maulana Abdul Kareem as he described the articles of faith in Islam. Maqbool

Ahmed Siraj’s presented a thought-provoking paper on Islam Women and Gender Justice. Bringing in his vast experience as a journalist, Gautam Siddharth highlighted various aspects of politics and violent extremism, concluding his excellent talk on the role of the media in promoting inter-community harmony. Focusing on Muslims in India, Dr M M Abraham traced their history back to the early days of the Arab traders. Shaikh Imdad shared his experiences as a Muslim trying to learn Carnatic music, stressing that music has no religion and pointing out how it can help build bonds between people from different faiths.Chairman of HMI, Dr Surya Prakash presented his reflections about the importance of living together in one common brotherhood. Victor

Edwin shared his experiences of interacting with Muslims over the years, stressing that it was only by “meeting more Muslims” one could understand Islam and understand the communalities that exist between Islam and Christianity.Participants were fortunate to be able to experience practical

meditation techniques guided by Gjanam Shreenivas of the Hyderabad Osho Centre. It was a very new experience of focusing on the self. It seemed like a divine blessing from heavens above to be able to listen to Deepti Rupani on the “Sufis of Sindh: From the Teachings of Sadhu Vaswani.” To many thousands around the world, Sadhu Vaswani is a name synonymous with reverence for all life. Indeed, he was the living embodiment of unsullied love that knew no bounds and that included all mankind, animals and all creation. He cared deeply about the birds of the air and the animals of the earth, and he protected them whenever and however he could. Deepti’s explanation of the importance of “Satsang and Seva”—concepts common to all

religions—was very inspiring.The course was not just all about lecture sessions. It was also a practical demonstration of celebrating honesty, kindness and love. HMI’s academic coordinator Sribala arranged for three friends to make a short appearance: Shaikh Lathif, Hari Prasad and Shiva, who had spotted a sum of 24 lakhs lying at an ATM in Hyderabad recently and had promptly contacted the police. The boys spoke about their amazing deed of honesty and civic concern and were felicitated on the occasion.It was wonderful being part of the course. I got to learn, as well as unlearn, many things and to meet people from different faith backgrounds. It revived my hopes and faith in inter-faith dialogue. The positive ambience and approach of the participants and the HMI team inspired me with hope, reminding me that all of us, from different faith backgrounds, are bonded by that one spark called “peace and love!” and that what we need to be able to live together is acceptance of each other, not mere tolerance.There was another thing that participating in the course reminded of: that it’s not money that makes the world go around, but love and peace, with all of us having to finally come back to one Centre—the only Centre—God.From God we come, and to God we shall all return, no matter what religion or belief-system we claim to follow! n

It’s not money that makes the world go around, but love and peace, with all of us having to finally come

back to one Centre—the only Centre—God. From God we come, and to God we shall all return, no matter what religion or belief-system we claim to follow!

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 8

From Here & tHere

GloBe talK

Sydney: Ben Affleck, a Hollywood star and director, won praise on social media after an angry debate with anti-Islam TV host Bill Maher and author Sam Harris, attacking the negative, "incomplete" image they were painting for world Muslims."Hold on! Are you the person who officially understands the codified doctrine of Islam?" Affleck interrupted Harris who was attacking Islam. The star was a guest on the TV show” Real Time With Bill Maher” to promote his new film, when the panel discussed current affairs. He became incensed when the host Bill Maher and author Sam Harris began talking about radical Islamists. "We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where criticism of the religion gets conflated with bigotry towards Muslims as people," Harris began. "It's intellectually ridiculous." Affleck then told them their talk was "gross and racist.Harris continued to argue that Islam was currently the "motherlode of bad ideas," and Maher agreed, which led Affleck to counter, "It's just an ugly thing to say", before launching into a tirade."How about the more than a billion people who are not fanatical, who

don't punish women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, pray five times a day and don't do any of the things that 'all Muslims do'? You're stereotyping. You're taking a few bad things and you're painting the whole religion with that same brush," Affleck said. The heated

debate went on when Harris, who has been criticized repeatedly for spreading negative views on Islam, claimed that millions of Muslims were fundamentalists. "Because it's the only religion that acts like the

mafia that will kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book," Maher added.Affleck, who was visibly angered by the discussion, added: "We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us, by an awful lot... yet we're exempted from these things because they're not really a reflection of what we believe in... I'm specifically telling you that I disagree with what you think."The actor won praise on social media for accusing both men of religious stereotyping while discussing Islam with them on Maher’s HBO talk show, and also prompted analysis from journalists. n

Hollywood Star Ben Affleck Rejects Racist Views on Islam

Moscow Hotel goes ‘Halal’Moscow: No bacon for breakfast, a room for prayers and a Qur’an on your bedside table: a hotel in Moscow has launched a special “halal” service as Russia tries to attract visitors from the Muslim world.“Around 70 percent of our guests are from overseas and 13 percent of these or some 5,000 people come from Muslim countries, especially Iran,” says Lyubov Shiyan, marketing director at the Aerostar hotel.“Our Muslim visitors were constantly asking for a separate prayer room or a special menu,” she said. “We wanted everyone who came here to feel at home.”To make that happen, the hotel had to go through a rigorous procedure

before it could finally be certified halal by Muslim officials in Russia and launch the service this month. These are tough times for Russia’s tourism industry with the

numbers of visitors, especially from the West, nose diving in recent months amidst the worst East-West tensions since the Cold War, over the crisis in Ukraine. Industry sources set the drop in Western visitors, notably from

the US and Britain, at 30 to 50 percent. That has sent hotels scrambling to attract guests from other parts of the globe, including Muslim nations in the Mideast

and Asia that have placed no sanctions on Moscow over its intervention in Ukraine. “We equipped 20 rooms out of the 308 in the hotel with a prayer mat, a basin for ritual washing and a small compass that indicates the direction of Makkah,” said Shiyan. “Even the shampoo and soap in the rooms have

been certified as halal and do not contain any animal fats or alcohol,” she added. Two prayer rooms — one for men and one for women have been set up and a separate kitchen will be cooking exclusively halal food. n

Where are the marches against the Islamic State?Mainstream Muslims must express our rejection of extremism in clear terms, while

doing whatever we can to stop young people from radicalizing.By Yasmine Bahrani

This summer, many Muslims marched in the streets of London, Paris and other cities to condemn the deaths of Gazans at the hands of Israel . Of course it makes sense to protest the bombing of schools and residential buildings. I marched in the streets against Israel’s invasion of Lebanon when I was a student, and I marched against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. But, inexplicably, there have been no similarly large-scale demonstrations against the Islamic State for its horrific acts against Christians, Yazidis and even its fellow Muslims in Iraq and Syria. And there certainly haven’t been any marches protesting the beheading of innocents . It’s not

hard to organize a march. So where are the demonstrations?This is not the first time this question has occurred to me. For years, I have wondered about this absence of public outrage. When I asked about the murder of Iraqi civilians by Sunni and Shiite gangs, my fellow Muslims dodged my questions: “Why did the United States invade Iraq in the first place?” Yes, the U.S. invasion was a mistake. But why is it so hard to take a stand against the killing of women and children? I never got a straight answer.To be sure, many Muslims have spoken out against the Islamic State, and some clerics have condemned this gang of terrorists; Qatar-based Islamic scholar

Yusuf Qaradawi, for instance, said the Islamic State violates sharia law and declared “null and void” the group’s declaration of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. But their words merely echoed those of non-Muslims who have called for an end to the violence. Surely we can do better. Don’t Muslims

have a responsibility to speak out more loudly than others? We need the world to see anti-Islamic State marchers taking to the streets with the passion that we saw at the Gaza rallies in London and Paris. Mainstream Muslims must express our rejection of extremism in clear terms, while doing whatever we can to stop young people from radicalizing.

The common refrain is: “That’s not Islam.” Of course it isn’t. Muslims know that, but we need to understand that others do not. And here’s the problem: To much of the world, the Islamic State, Nigeria’s Boko Haram and other such groups do represent the Muslim community. Today, say the word “Islam” and few

think of the glories of our history and culture. Rather, they picture masked men with knives. And as long as our condemnations remain tepid, we give the impression that we accept the crimes of murderers whose savvy YouTube productions reach far and wide. Like it or not, the Islamic State is winning the public relations war.Sadly, mainstream Muslims have

no choice but to come to terms with the fact that groups of people are car-bombing, shooting, starving, kidnapping and beheading people in the name of Islam — not to mention blowing up churches and mosques. Where is the anger? Is it possible that the marches in support of Palestinians are well-attended

because Muslims hate Israel more than we hate criminal gangs who have hijacked the narrative of our religion?The decision before the community is this: Either we reject the Islamic State and groups like it in the clearest possible terms, or we allow them to become the face of Muslims. When we say “It’s not Islam,” we are dismissing the criminals as someone else’s problem. The truth is, nobody else is going to deal with them. It might seem easier to evade this responsibility, but the price of doing so will

be heavy. Because, to the rest of the world, that horrific picture is what Muslims have become. If we don’t do something now, that image will be the world’s perception of us for years to come.(Yasmine Bahrani is a professor of journalism at American University in Dubai)(www.washingtonpost.com)

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 9

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mUslim PersPectives

Two Eids, One Community

By Azher Quader Thanks to the lively controversy between the moonsighters of America and the moonsighters of Arabia we had two days of Eid ul Adha to celebrate again in Chicago. With all the wonderful advances in technology and communications the world has made, it is indeed impressive that we insist on remaining frozen in time and tradition, refusing to bow down to either change or circumstances. But Chicago Muslims need not complain. This kind of debate provides for greater choices and greater flexibility for those of us who are ordinarily caught in tight work schedules. A two day Eid is certainly a welcome relief! At times of Eid, in addition to the usual exchange of greetings, we might do well to pause a while and take stalk of ourselves. For after all every ritual in Islam has meaning and purpose. For Eid ul Adha there is the timeless story of Syedina Ibrahim (pbuh) with the message of submission and sacrifice. There is the soul-stirring advice of our beloved Prophet (pbuh) enshrined in the last sermon that he delivered from Mount Arafat, that lays down the concept of the brotherhood of man, the unity of the ummah and the foundations of human relations, ranging from humility

to humanity, from racial parity to gender equity. These are powerful stories that need repeating even as we indulge ourselves in the celebration of the moment,

inclining to be casual and not wanting to be serious. They give us glimpses of men with great spiritual strength and vision, in whose words and deeds we may yet discover, if we cared to look in, the remedy for all our present woes. In their lives, we can find an uncompromising submission to His will that demands sacrifice above self, endurance above envy, compassion above hate. As we witness on video the vengeful beheadings by ISIS of innocent civilians in Muslim lands, as we struggle here in America to fight discrimination, media bias, the phantoms of prejudice and neocon paranoia, we may find these stories from our past of much help. By reflecting upon the brutality of Taif in his

life, we may find the strength to overcome the anger and anguish of Islamophobia in our world. By remembering the sacrifices of Badr and Uhud, we may find

reason to sacrifice a lot more than money and matter in the defence of His causes. By reviewing the Treaty of Hudaibiya we may find clues to the wisdom of making agreements with those that disagree with us, by relinquishing our favoured positions of the present, in order to win the promise and possibilities of the future. In remembering his bloodless conquest of Mecca and in his declaration of a general amnesty for the entire enemy, there is a powerful lesson for us to learn of the enormous embrace of forgiveness and its capacity to heal. Finally from his return to Medina after the conquest of Mecca, is perhaps the most noteworthy lesson for those of us who left our native lands either

by choice or force, and long to return to them, to recognize that emigration is not only pragmatic, but prescribed, that love of land and attachment to even the holiest

of hallowed grounds cannot be as endearing or special as the relationship to a community of believers. These and numerous more timeless lessons of our history are as relevant today in our daily lives as they have been to many other generations of Muslims before us. The choice is ours to make to learn from them if we may. It is up to us to look in the mirror and see who we really are. It is only when we decide to live our lives with purpose, letting go of vanity and ego, embracing humility and humanity, that the image in the mirror will become pleasing to the beholder. Too many of us in America have fallen prey to a life of material comforts and trivial pursuits. We live here but

exist in other worlds and rarely connect with the societal issues that surround us. We were once the champions of social justice, the learned and the educated, the repositories of compassion, the healers of the ailing, the benefactors of the poor and the defenders of the oppressed. Today we are the illiterate, the ailing, the poor and the oppressed. If we are to change our destiny, we will have to go beyond the superficial to the substantive and travel beyond the debates of hilal and halal. We are all given one life to live. The day we were born the dice was cast. How well we play this game is all a matter of the choices we make. It is never too late to make better ones. Our quest for glory that was once our lot can only be realized if we choose to ravel the road.Our families and friends are returning from their spiritual journeys to Mecca, a journey that some say can transform the human soul. As we joyfully wait to embrace them when they return, let us pray that the goodness they bring will transform our lives too.(Azher Quader is President, Community Builders Council. He can be reached at: www.cbc7.org)(Courtesy: The Muslim Observer, Detroit)

We need to travel beyond Hilal and Halal

Maharashtra Assembly Poll

Little chance that Congress would mend its ways.By M. Burhanuddin M. Qasmi Mumbai: A clear sign emerging from the elections in Maharashtra and Haryana is that the Bhartiya Janata Party is going to stay in power much longer than the Vajpayee era. By all measures, the party’s tally in Maharashtra i.e., 123 out of 288, is a historic one. In Haryana its triumph is a sweeping one (47 out of 90). In both states, the party is putting up old RSS hands at the seat of the power.The major loser is Indian National Congress which has lost power in both states after having ruled Maharashtra for three terms and Haryana two terms. It has been pushed to the third place in both states, i.e., behind Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and INLD in Haryana. The Congress could have performed better in Maharashtra had it tried

to retain its alliance with the NCP, especially when the BJP was confident enough of majority despite its alliance with the Shiv Sena having been broken.Emotional rhetoric rather than sound pragmatism seems to have influenced Muslim voters. At least one Muslim majority seat i.e., Bhiwandi seat (The city has three

seats with one being reserved for ST), was lost due to division of votes among two Muslims candidates. Same was the fate of Mumbra, Kurla, Bandra, Aurangabad and Nanded which either went to BJP or Shiv Sena due to multiplicity of candidates from secular parties. Previous Assembly had 11 Muslim members. The present has one less

Muslims were Misled by Rhetoric

i.e., 10. Those elected are: Amin Patel (Mumbadevi), Arif Naseem Khan (Chandiwali), Aslam Shaikh (Malad), Abdus Sattar (Sillod), Asif Shaikh (Malegaon - Central) – all 5 from Congress, Abu Asim Azmi (Mankhurd) from Samajwadi Party (SP), Hasan Mushrif (Kagal) from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP),

Polls

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 10oPinion

Pointers from Elections The emergence of the Bhartiya Janata Party as the single largest party in election for Maharashtra Assembly and the runaway victory in Haryana Assembly has not surprised anyone. These were very much on the cards. The deep demoralization in the ranks of the Indian National Congress and its refusal to learn any lesson from the shameful defeat in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year had almost confirmed its exit from power in the two states. In fact, the failure of the BJP and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra has ensured that the Congress and its former ally NCP saved themselves from a complete rout and have retained a sizeable presence in the House. Any such alliance between the two saffron parties could have yielded them more than a two-third majority in the 288-member Assembly.However, the BJP’s share of 27.8% among popular votes and 122 seats are much less than what the Party was hoping to gain. Since all the four major claimants to power in Maharashtra fought their battles independent of each other, the 2014 Assembly election results serve to indicate their real individual strength and popular influence in the State touted as a progressive and developed state in India.It is for the first time that the BJP will be taking over the reins of power in the State as a dominant partner in a coalition. The signals emanating from the mandate in the two states are unmistakably clear. First the BJP has expanded its appeal and can coerce its former partners to agree to its own terms. It is evident from the way Shiv Sena had to virtually beg for its place in the coalition in Maharashtra. Second, regional parties will henceforth feel a greater threat from the BJP than the Congress which has been, all but decimated all across the country barring a few pockets. The BJP has made massive forays into the Dalit votebanks as can be seen in Haryana where arrangement with Dera Sacha Sauda seems to have worked to its benefit. The Majlis Ittihadul Muslimeen, so far considered a party exclusively focused at Hyderabad, has sprung a surprise by winning two seats Maharashtra. It indicates a shift in preference of Muslims voters away from Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). India’s oldest party must take notice of a vital social component leaving its fold.Overall the results paint a pessimistic picture of the Indian National Congress. The downslide of the party knows no stopping. It is in serious need of introspection, overhauling of the organization, review of the policies, change in the leadership and the style of functioning. It needs to review its steadfast commitment to dynastic nature of its leadership and refusal to come to terms with new social realities and methodologies. The Party’s continuing decline despite a hiatus of five month from the Lok Sabha election points to a need for seminal changes in ideology, policies and organization.

Baloney of Love JihadLies have short lives, especially when they are employed for influencing public opinion. The baloney of Love Jihad may have done some benefit to the right wing forces in the communally sensitive region of Uttar Pradesh in general elections, but have come unstuck very soon. It is evident from the results in the by-elections in the 12 Assembly segments (including Kairana seat where elections were held on Oct. 13). The axiom that all people cannot be fooled all the time packs in itself a lot of substance. The BJP which swayed the voters in the Hindi belt with a package of falsehoods, half-truths and outright lies, should find itself mired in the mess created by its ideologues and cadres. The Meerut girl who fled her parental home to file an FIR against kidnapping and incarceration, has unveiled the larger designs for the communal harvest of votes.The oxymoron of ‘Love Jihad’ had a short shelf life. There can be coercive marriages but not coercive love. Love is instinctive and blooms in hearts. People do not live like frozen cubes in a plural society, howsoever votaries of religious fundamentalists may like or dislike it. There are bound to be marriages as well as conflicts, notwithstanding bars, bans, and religious diktats. There are perhaps as many Muslim girls married to Hindu men as there are Hindu women married to Muslim men. However, there is a difference. There have been more celebrated cases in the latter category, merely for the fact that elite Hindu society has been more liberal, amenable and open to such alliances. In either case, there should be no room for triumphalism (when a girl from the other side is married into the fold of one’s own community), nor should it lead to a sense of loss. No amount of interfaith marriages are going to alter the social demography of the nation in near future. Patriarchy runs deep into the Indian psyche and the society, be it Hindus or Muslims. Girls have little choice in matters of selecting a spouse for them. According to a survey, 40% of the rape cases registered in Delhi are in fact elopement cases where the girl and boy would have fled after falling in love. But parents embarrassed with intercaste or interfaith nature of these alliances, insist them to be ‘rape’ in police record.Yet things are not as simple as feminists would like to see them. There are indeed fears among people belonging to all communities, when a marriage is outcome of love rather than parental will in India. Marriage, pregnancy, childbirth are associated with females and parents of girls have to be wary of biological aftermath. Questions such as, ‘What if such marriages do not work for long? Where exactly the offspring would be socially located? What if the boy is not economically responsible?” have no ready answers. These are certainly not communally motivated worries but add a further layer of angst. Furthermore, age of economic stability in India does not synchronise with age of exercising free will in matters of marriage. Finally one has to reckon with question as to what if the elopements results merely in socially frowned live-in relationships, and not marriage. But to reduce the issue as a willful, devious ploy by the other community to win female folk, would be to look at it from a very biased angle. Whether one would like it or not, such marriages do serve to blur the communal fault lines in a fractious society where plenty of other factors constantly reinforce them.

Girls Deserve the Chance to Reach Their Dreams

Just as Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai has inspired us all with her fortitude, there are girls in cities, towns, and rural villages around the globe who

are fighting for their own dangerous dreams.

By Salma Hayek Pinault Wherever you go around the world, you will find young girls with big dreams. Girls like Fatima, who dreams of being a scientist, so that her name can live forever through her experiments. Girls like Simrah, who dreams of being an Olympic swimmer, because training as an athlete has taught her that "the only way for me is forward." Girls like Areeba, who dreams of becoming a diplomat, saying "If we believe in ourselves, everyone will believe in us."Girls whose dreams and determination to pursue them reveal tremendous courage and resolve, in a world where seeking something better for themselves can literally put their lives at risk. Just as Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has inspired us all with her fortitude, there are girls in cities, towns, and rural villages around the globe who are fighting for their own dangerous dreams. The dream of getting an education. The dream of marrying when they choose. The dream of controlling their bodies and their lives. The dream of becoming everything they know that they can be -- no matter the obstacles or risk.These are the girls -- and these are the dreams -- we celebrate on The International Day of the Girl, October 11, 2014. If we help more girls to realize their dreams, the impact will be transformative. When girls are empowered with education, health, and justice, they can drive extraordinary progress, raising up their communities and making the future brighter for us all.One of the most inspiring examples I know is 27-year old Humaira Bachal, who, like Malala, has been a leader for girls' education since she was a girl herself. Humaira grew up in a desperately poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Karachi in Pakistan. Even though her own father resisted her schooling, Humaira believed that education was the key to a better life, and, crucially, her mother did too. At the age of 12, Humaira and a few of her friends started teaching other neighbourhood children -- first out of her own home, and, as more and more students started attending, in space she rented as two makeshift classrooms, paid for out of her own pocket.Humaira was tireless in challenging long-established cultural practices, exhorting mothers not to pass on to their daughters the illiteracy, early marriage, and other injustices that they themselves had endured; and urging fathers to permit all their children to receive the education that is their birthright. By June 2013, she and her colleagues were educating roughly 1,200 girls and boys, and graduates of the program were taking the model to other communities as well.It was an incredible success story, but Humaira's dreams were only getting bigger. She envisioned creating a modern school, complete with playground, library, and computers, a place where local girls and boys could start to see the world beyond their horizon.At last summer's Sound of Change Live concert event, we shared Humaira's story with the world, with a screening of "Humaira the Dreamcatcher" by Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. Madonna stepped forward with a major donation and challenged the Chime community to join her, which we made possible through crowd funding technologies, using the power of social media for social change. Thanks to the overwhelming response, Humaira's Dream School was completed this summer. It has gone from a dream to a dream come true, and, in Humaira's words, the building itself "stands as a very visible symbol of what a girl can achieve."Humaira's Dream School is tangible proof that each of us can make a difference. But dreaming alone is not enough; we also have to act. Every one of us has a voice. Every one of us can make a contribution. You can find a place to participate, to speak out, to be a part of something bigger than yourself. We are defined by our actions. And those actions add up… one person, one step, one dollar, one euro, one peso, one rial at a time -- as solitary voices become a movement of many, too powerful to ignore.But we must not wait. Because it isn't just about what we gain when we empower girls. It's also about how much society loses when we don't. How can Nigeria ever reach its full potential when schoolgirls, kidnapped in the dark of night, are still missing, more than five months later? How can Syria ever hope to rebuild itself when so many displaced women and girls are being brutalized and scarred by sexual violence, domestic abuse, and early marriage? How can any country secure lasting prosperity if it neglects or, worse, deliberately restrains the abilities of half its people? And how can any of us feel good about a world where girls face these kinds of injustices?The students at Humaira's school have a prayer: "May my life be as bright as a burning candle." On this International Day of the Girl, let us shelter and support young girls' dreams, and help those millions of tiny flames become a sun that lights the sky.(Salma Hayek Pinault is a Board Member of the Kering Corporate Foundation and Co-Founder of CHIME FOR CHANGE).(Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salma-hayek-pinault/girls-deserve-the-chance-_b_5969764.html) URL: http://www.newageislam.com/

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 11

Jodhpur: A Minority Girls Hostel with accommodation capacity for 56 girls was inaugurated here in the premises of the Marwar Muslim Educational and Welfare Society group of institutions on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. The Hostel has been constructed by the Jodhpur Municipal Corporation at a cost of Rs. 1.85 crore. Former Chief Minister Mr. Ashok Gehlot commissioned the building which has 14 rooms. Speaking at the occasion, he hoped that the hostel would offer

better educational opportunities to the girls from the minority communities. State Wakf Board chief Liyaqath Ali and several

other dignitaries participated in the function. n

New Delhi: The Minister for Minority Affairs, Najma Heptullah, announced the establishment of a nation level skill development Academy, “Maulana Azad National Academy for Skills” (MANAS) with headquarters in Delhi. Ms. Hebtullah announced this on Nov. 10, on the eve of Maulana Azad’s birthday.MANAS will focus on providing skills, upgrading abilities and training members of minority communities in those sectors of the economy which are either facing a shortage or labour or

where demand for labour is expected to surge. MANAS will also train people so that they may be self-employed. The National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC) will provide assistance with credit for persons who have undergone training at MANAS and wish to establish their own business or be self employed. MANAS will also collaborate with multiple national and international agencies to provide certification and assistance with placement for the trainees, and also to secure funding for the program.

A MoU was also signed by MANAS and the National Skill Development Corporation to establish an All India Collaborative Network for MANAS.Excellent Performance Awards were presented to three State channellising agencies namely Nagaland State Social Welfare Board, Kerala State BC Development Board and J. K. Women Development Corporation. She also released the first issue of newsletter of the National Minorities Development Finance Corporation. n

Hostel for Minority Girls Commissioned

Maulana Azad National Academy for Skills (MANAS)

AMU hosts 62nd Annual ConvocationAligarh: The Aligarh Muslim University organized its 62nd Annual Convocation last fortnight. Over 4,000 University degrees were awarded and around 240 gold medals were given to University students. Director General, Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), Rabat, Morocco, and Secretary General of Federation of Universities of Islamic World (FUIW), Dr. Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri presented the degrees. He called upon Muslim youth in India and all over the world to come forward and project the "true, humanitarian and inclusive image of Islam" to the rest of the world. Delivering the Convocation Address at the 62nd Annual Convocation of

the Aligarh Muslim University, Altwaijri, who is a noted educationist in the Middle East, said that in today's world, which is threatened by the divisive forces of "terrorism and senseless violence", it had become incumbent on Muslim youth to reaffirm the image of Islam as a "religion of peace and mercy". He said he was confident that the fresh graduates of the Aligarh Muslim University were embarking upon "a new journey to serve the Muslim community as well as all humanity for enlightenment and progress in all avenues". He lauded the AMU for launching a Bridge Course

for graduates of Madrasas for providing a link between Quranic schools and modern education. Delivering the University's Annual Report, AMU Vice

Chancellor, Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah (Retd.) said that the Madrasa Bridge Course was a "unique initiative which will go a long way in making Madrasa students stakeholders in nation building". n

UPSC Prelims SuccessesNew Delhi: Seventy Three students from the Residential Coaching Academy run by the Centre for Coaching and Career Planning, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, have cleared Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 2014. These students appeared for the Prelims held on August 24, 2014. The Residential Coaching Academy in Jamia Millia Islamia, funded by the UGC, offered free coaching and residential facilities to students belonging to SC, ST, Women and Minorities. They were selected for comprehensive coaching on the basis of an all-India written test followed by individual interviews. They were subsequently taught in a variety of optional and compulsory subjects. Classroom teaching was followed by test series. The students received feedback on their individual performance in

respect of various tests.A press release from the Jamia Millia said, Prof. Talat Ahmad, Vice Chancellor has initiated measures to strengthen the functioning of the Residential Coaching Academy. Dr. Saleem Ali, IPS (Retd.) has been appointed as Honorary Director, Centre for Coaching & Career Planning since August, 2014. Last year 53 Jamia students had cracked the Prelims. Meanwhile, a release from the Crescent Academy, Aligarh claimed that 28 students successfully passed the Prelims. Last year the four of the Academy’s trainees were able to come out successful as the IAS appointees.It may be noted that the Prelims are the first stage of the UPSC selection process and the results are announced only after the Mains exam and interviews. n

Boy Burnt to Death in Garrison

CLMC Urges CBI InquiryHyderabad: The Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee (CLMC) has urged action against two military personnel who sodomised and burnt to death a 11-year old boy, Shaikh Mustafa in Military Garrison in Mehdipatnam on October 8. The incident sent shock waves across the city. The boy’s family is a resident of Siddiqnagar, a colony encircled by the Military Garrison located behind the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital.A fact-finding team comprising Kaneez Fathima, D. Kotesh, Gurram Seetaramula, D. Nagaraju, Sogra Begum, Tathagata Sengputa,

Greeshma Rai and several others which visited the area, said the case was purely a case of sexual assault and murder of an 11-year old boy Shaikh Mustafa by two military persons. It said the area residents were being harassed by the Military personnel as it was encircled by the military areas.According to the CLMC report, the boy was asked by two men in army uniform to bring chocolates, matchbox and cigarettes. While returning after delivering the same, the boy was pushed on the ground, doused with kerosene and a lighted matchstick was flung at him while fleeing. He sustained

92% burns and succumbed to his burns after being shifted from one hospital to another. The dying declaration was recorded by the Osmania General Hospital XV Chief additional Magistrate A. Srinivas.The team which met with Humayun Nagar police Inspector S. Ravinder, said teams had been formed to track the culprits. The boy although mentioned two army men, did not specify their names. Ravinder seemed to be of the opinion that the army was conducting its own inquiry.The SLMC has noted that there has been conflict between residents of Siddiqnagar, who include people of various communities, and the army as the latter has been trying to evacuate the land from civilian population. It also called for CBI inquiry into the incident and effort to shift the cantonments outside the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad for ensuring better social harmony. n

New Book Explores the Grisly Underbelly of Counter Terrorism in IndiaNew Delhi: Hundreds of Muslim youth have found their lives destroyed when they were falsely accused of terrorism only to be released years later. A new book to be released soon explores this grisly underbelly of counterterrorism in India. The book Kafkaland: Prejudice, Law and Counterterrorism in India details prejudice and lawlessness that seems to be the standard operating codes of counterterrorism in India. The book by activist Manisha Sethi examines some of the prominent terror cases to show that the hallmark of terror investigations is not simply a casual subversion of norms, but cynical prejudice and brutal violence inflicted in the knowledge of absolute impunity. It also examines the disquieting trend of judicial abdication, wherein the courts indulgently ignore signs of torture, lack of evidence and absence of procedural norms, while trying terror cases. Kafkaland challenges the dominant

narratives of counterterrorism and the emerging security-industrial complex. Kafkaland is where impunity, bias, suspicion are sustained by laws, where erosion of constitutional guarantees is advertised as internal security, where corporate greed masquerades as national interest.Manisha Sethi is currently Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. She teaches at the Centre

for Comparative Religions and Civilizations, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She is also Associate Editor at Biblio: A Review of Books. Her book Escaping the World: Women Renouncers among Jains was published in 2012. Sethi is an activist with Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity

Association.Available at major bookstores and with the main distributor: IPD Alternatives 35A/1 Shahpur Jatt, New Delhi 110049 Tel. 011-26491448/26492040 e-mail ipd.alternatives@gmail.com or directly from Three Essays (www.threeessays.com)

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 12essaY

Muslims and Inter-Community Relations A Global Overview

Islam recognises that people would pursue various paths to God and salvation, and there are bound to be differences. In order to achieve peace, it enjoins the Muslims not to revile other’s gods.

By Maqbool Ahmed Siraj

Muslim population around the world currently stands around 1.6 billion, nearly 23% of the total people who inhabit the globe. There are 56 member-states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) where Muslims are in majority and control their affairs. Nearly 30% of the world’s Muslims live as minorities in other countries. India has almost 16 crore Muslims who constitute 13% of its population. Indian Muslims outnumber population of several smaller Islamic states put together. Islam emerged from the Middle East. But Arabs whose population is around 35 crore and who live in 22 countries, are not entirely Muslims. Nor all Muslims around the world are Arabs. There are considerable non-Muslim minorities in the Arab country, e.g., half of the

Lebanon’s people are Christian inasmuch as its Constitution calls for only a Christian to be the

President of the country. Egypt’s Coptic Christian comprise 9% of its population. There are small communities of Jews in almost all Arab countries. Even within the Middle East, Iran and Turkey are ethnically different from Arabs. Iran has a cultural heritage different from Islam. Turkey too is much culturally richer than Arabs. Indonesia is the State with largest number of Muslims and is almost half the globe away from the Islam’s heartland in the Middle East. Most Muslims in Indonesia are converts from Hinduism and culturally more akin to Hindus than to Muslim Arabs.Two Muslim countries on the either flanks of India are Pakistan and Bangladesh. While 5% of Pakistan’s people are either Hindus or Christians, Hindus

constitute 8.2% of its population while other religions make up roughly 1.5% of the people in Bangladesh. The languages spoken by Muslims in South Asia

are of Indo-Aryan origin and are embedded into Sanskrit. Roughly 4% of Europe’s population is Muslim. Strangely, there are two Muslim majority

states, Albania and Kosovo but the government has got nothing to do with religion. Another State Bosnia & Herzegovina is a Muslim dominant state i.e.,

44 % Muslims but has adopted a totally secular Constitution. Muslim comprise 5 to 7% in all West European states who are predominantly immigrants from North Africa, Indian subcontinent, Indonesia and Africa and the Middle East. Then there are nearly three million Muslims in the US who may constitute less than 1% of the total population. In neighbouring Canada Muslims constitute 3.2% of people i.e., over a million. Muslims in China are almost 50 million while in Russia they number around 20 million. This overview of the Muslim demography across the world should make it evident that Muslims are tied in diverse relationships with non-Muslims everywhere. Just as no nation-state is ethnically pure, Muslim countries too are not monolithic. The people are criss-crossed by ethnic, linguistic, sectarian, divisions. It is in this context that intercommunity relations need to be discussed. Most Muslims start the discourse with ‘Islam means Peace’. This is very simplistic to start any discussion on inter-community relations. People, communities and nations cooperate, coordinate, coalesce, collide and clash, and come into conflict on the basis of their interests. Religion may be just one element of their identity. This does not make any religious community a homogenous whole. Peace and love dominate

the narrative of the Christian missionary organizations. But the fact is that major violent campaigns emanated from the Christian Europe e.g., Crusades, two World Wars, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, nuclear race, Stalinist terror. Christianity is not responsible for all this. Similarly, Islam may mean peace, but Islamic Middle East has seen a lot of bloodshed, rise and fall of empires and social turmoil all through the 15 centuries of the existence of Islam. The Quran talks of the entire humankind as one universal brotherhood in its capacity as descendants of Adam and Eve. It also talks about ‘God having conferred dignity over the mankind. Commonality of Abrahamic heritage, ties Christian and Jews into a unique relationship of Ahl e Kitaab. Furthermore, the Quran does not envisage the monolithic Islamic world. It recognizes that the world will be inhabited by people who follow various faiths, Islam included. It therefore lays down norms for inter-religious dialogue between people of varying religious persuasions and even pagans. Prophet Muhammad proclaimed all people to be Al-khalqu Ayalullah (the entire humankind is the family of God.) Yet Islam recognises that people would pursue various paths to God and salvation and there are bound to be differences and therefore peace and harmony would be the prime need of the humanity to bond it together into a universal brotherhood. In order to achieve peace, it enjoins the Muslims not to revile other’s gods. There is a tendency in all religious people to be self-obsessed and think of other

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ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 13essaY

faiths as false and fallacious. Islam enjoins its followers not to vilify other religions and their weaknesses, lest they also vilify the God of Muslims and the ultimate situation being worse than before. This Quranic verse says that insofar as mistakes are concerned, Allah will send his mercy and help the ignorant.The Quran also talks about virtuous people from all faiths deserving reward from God and advises Muslims not to create differences and distinction among various prophets as all of them were sent by God. It also talks about there being no compulsion in pursuing a faith and for everyone has the right to follow his faith. These are the ideals cherished by the Quran and Islam. But communities and nations do not live by the ideals, be they national or religious. It is 1,425 years since Prophet Muhammad departed from this mortal world. History, geography of the nations and polity and economics have all undergone massive changes. Today we live in a world divided among 250 nation-states. These states have come into existence not on the basis of the dominant faith followed by a group of people, but on the basis of ethnicity, nationality and linguistic identity of the people inhabiting them. Former colonial masters too had had a hand in fixing their borders. Nearly all of them decide the citizenship on the basis of historical claim of residence of those people who are its citizens. Not on the basis of faith.

The major changes we have witnessed in modern age could be listed as following:

The major changes we have 1. witnessed in modern age could be listed as following: Nation-states are defined by 2. the ethnicity, language and collective memory of the people. No nation can claim religious 3. purity.Religion has only symbolic 4. relevance in determining the national identity. Government and people are 5. not designated as rulers and the ruled. Nor kings and subjects. But participants in the democratic process. Religion of the majority 6. of the people does lend a nation a distinct flavor, but minorities are equally part of the governance. Minority rights are guaranteed and

those of the minorities within the minority are also recognized. Religion is a private affair 7. of the individuals, it does not determine their status in the nation-states. Everyone has the freedom to 8. choose a faith, live by it or give it up, even propagate it. The role of religion in the 9. public life has been limited drastically. Some states have banished it altogether such as Albania, China etc (they ban growing of beard and wearing of Hijab). Certain states give them ceremonial role i.e., holidays for festivals, recognition of their symbols, etc (The US, Canada, the UK). Some others go a little further and provide guarantee for preservation of the culture, educational institutions, calendar, medicinal systems, even civil laws pertaining to regulation of family life, etc (e.g., India, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, West Indies.). A few States have curbed the right to wear religious symbols (ban on veil in France and Belgium, circumcision in Germany or raising of minarets in Switzerland.)A few go much further and 10. provide reservation for minorities, and are taking measures to arrest the decline of their numbers as we do in India for Parsis. A few such as Lebanon and 11. Iraq have even designated public positions for certain communities (only a Maronite Christian can be a Lebanese president, a sunni Muslim prime minister, a shia Muslim the Speaker of the House etc. Similarly, Iraq has designated President’s post for a Kurd).

But the fact is that the inter-community relations are not always guided or regulated by the Constitution or law. If the spirit of camaraderie, brotherhood, caring and sharing, accommodation and tolerance are missing, inter-community relations are bound to suffer disharmony. History, language, competition for scarce resources, perception of domination and subordination, clash of values, disputes over territories, wars between two States etc determine the inter-community relations in a

particular society and at a specific era or age.

Case of South AsiaSouth Asia with three large countries viz. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh presents a unique case. Despite being a Hindu majority region, the 650 years of Muslim rule (from 1191 AD to 1857 AD) makes it a very distinct region where majority community suffers from a siege mentality. Creation of Pakistan (which eventually broke up

into two with Bangladesh on the eastern flank), three and half wars between India and Pakistan; the continuing fractious legacy of Partition in Jammu and Kashmir; India’s geographical location where it is encircled by Muslim States of Middle East and South East Asia, reinforce this mentality. Even while all these may not have anything to do with the Muslims and Hindus living within India, the historical animosities do influence inter-community relations. Muslims are generally suspected to be deficient in patriotism at best and fifth columnist at worst. They are accused of celebrating Pakistani victory in Cricket. (Sania Mirza is questioned as to whose victory she would celebrate, merely because she is married to a Pakistani cricketer). Kashmir imbroglio adds the secessionist element to this perception. Maltreatment of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh also casts its shadow over Hindu-Muslim relations in India although fair treatment of one’s minorities does not and should not warrant reciprocity. Justice is an absolute value and is not a matter of reciprocation.

Vegetarian habits of the Hindu power elite and non-vegetarianism practised by Muslims is a constant source of friction. Reverence for cows and mention of ban on

cow slaughter in the Directive Principles of the State’s Policy gives the issue a positive tilt in favour of the Hindus. This could provoke violence anywhere. Any minority which commands more than 10% of votes is not looked with same benevolence as one that is less than 5%. Thirteen per cent of Muslim population is seen as a thorn in the side of those who propose Hindu Rashtra. Theory of Muslim being a privileged community too has been concocted to project them

as a threat. A slightly higher growth rate is posed as a danger signal. Article 30 is also pointed out as yet another factor lending the minorities a privileged position.Competition over scarce resources leads to friction over cultural p r o p e r t i e s . E i d g a h s ,

g r a v e y a r d s , mosques become

bone of contention. Those eyeing the votes of a

particular community target such issues and promote violence. Distorted history, entry of anti-Muslim material in textbooks, demonization of Muslims in the media too fuel Muslim ire. Blasphemy laws in Pakistan are used as a tool of harassment against Christian minority. Abduction of Hindu girls by Muslim gangs in rural Sindh of that country too act as a source of friction. There have been demands to change cities named by or after Muslims like Ahmadabad, Hyderabad and Allahabad to Karnavati, Bhagyanagar and Prayag respectively. Curiously, the capital of Bangladesh is named after a Hindu temple Dhakeshwari, a Hindu goddess. But there were never any demand to change the name of the capital. On a smaller level, resistance is seen for proposals to change

street names after Muslim heroes, artistes. It took BBMP a decade to officially name the 100-feet Road in Bangalore’s upscale Indiranagar after Kareemkhan, a yakshagana artiste. Yet all is not lost between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia. Both share a lot of similarities, culture and traditions. There are a number of syncretic shrines all across the South Asia where Hindus and Muslims pay their obeisance. They are not taken kindly by the religious extremists bent upon segregating the communities. Kathak dance, Urdu language, Qawwali, Urs, Bollywood films are products of creative interactions between the two communities. Composite culture of Indo-Gangetic plain where Hindus and Muslims shared the same Hindustani boli (lingo), contributed to Hindi and Urdu literature, gave rise to synthesized form of religious movements such as Kabeerpanthi, Arya Samaj and even Sikhism, all these testify to confluence of the two religions. Sikhism borrowed its doctrine of monotheism from Islam and cultural mores from Hindus. Even the foundation of Golden Temple in Amritsar was laid by a Muslim sufi Miyan Sahib Meer. The oldest Ramleela Committee in Delhi was started by last Mughal king Bahadur Shah Zafar in 1829, i.e., 185 years ago. Even Phoolwalon ki Sair, a syncretic festival where fans made of flowers are offered at the dargah of Khawja Bakhtiyar Kaki and Yogmaya Temple in Mehrauli was started by penultimate Mughal King Akbar Shah II (1808-1837) in 1812 and was revived by Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru in 1961. Urdu literature and poetry was enriched by Hindu litterateurs such as Munshi Premchand, Braj Narain Chakbast, Jaswant Rai Naqsh Lailpuri, Prof. Raghupati Sahai Firaq Gorakhpuri, Ram Lal, Bisheshar Pradeep, Khushtar Garami, Upendranath Ashk, Kashmiri Lal Zakir, Manorama Diwan, Krishan Chandar, Arsh Malsiani, etc. Muslims writer are

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ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 14found contributing to literature in all languages, for instance Omar wrote Sirapuranam in Tamil and Syed Khader known in Tamil as Seethakkathi lived in the 17th century. The oldest existing Urdu magazine (104 year old) is Mastana Jogi currently edited by J. P. Bhatnagar. We even find mention of a Christian poet in Urdu too i.e., Shauq Jalandhari. Muslim-Non-Muslim Inter-community Relations GloballyDiverse Communities living side by side do not live like frozen cubes. They interact with each other. They also have clash of ethos and conflicts to tackle. Muslims have arrived in large numbers from the former colonies to the colonizing countries i.e., from the sub-continent to Britain; from Indonesia to Holland; Algeria, Tunisia, Ghana, Niger, Mali and Morocco to France; from Libya and Sudan to Italy; from Turkey (which was never colonized) to Germany. The freedom, democracy and liberal education in the West has enabled the migrant Muslim countries to throw up an entire range of new Islamic thinkers like Tariq Ramadan, Ian Hirsi Ali, Ziauddin Sardar, Mohammed Arkoun, Nimat Hafez Barzangi, Abdullahi al-Naim, Ahmed M. Souaiaia, Aminah Wadud, Raji al-Faruqi, etc. Shunning conservatism that dominates the academics in their native lands, these authors have made interpretation of Islam in sync with liberal ethos of the current age. Even while these authors are exporting civil liberties and democracy to their native lands and imparting rationality to civilisational dialogue, the migrants have brought in gender biases, honour killings, dowry harassment, thought control, et al. Extremist among nationalists have kicked up xenophobia. Religious extremists among them have triggered Islamophobia. Islam is the new bogeyman of security apparatus all across these societies.But there has been an effort to understand Islam too on the

part of the West. John Esposito, Karen Armstrong, Murad Hoffman, Dilip Hero, Annemarie Schimmel, Jeffery Lang, Carol Anway, Roger Garaudy, are a few names who have very sensitively contributed to the promotion of debate on Islam. Generally, most Western gov-ernments have allowed liberal space to Islam and Muslims within their land. It may primarily be as repayment of a debt to their colonial rule. But xenopho-bic movements look apprehensively at Muslims in Europe, mainly due to their better birthrate, youngish profile and declining population of the natives. Some of them fear clash of values too, particularly in mat-ters of gender equality which the West has practiced for nearly two full centuries. The ban on veil by Belgium and France may be one example to cite. As a general rule, sacrifice of animals for re-ligious reasons is not possible in European nation, not due to any religious opposition but solely due to strict rules regarding municipal waste disposal. Switzerland’s ban on raising minaret over mosques however defies logic. The right extremists pressed for it as they felt cultural threat to the domi-nant architectural ethos. There have been objections to Zabiha, the Islamic way of slaughter of animals (which is also shared by the Jews). Circumcision is also a

point of contention. But as a whole the West has been a much hospitable land for Muslims and Islam than the Islamic lands of the East to followers of other religions. Muslim migrants could have

education, seek employment, purchase land, become voters, contest elections and become legislators, marry native women, take citizenship and do business. Some of the hassles the non-Muslims face in the Islamic lands are as follows:

Rule of law is non-existent.1. Citizenship is rarely granted 2. to migrants. This blots out prospects of ever being voters, contestants and legislators except in countries like Turkey, Indonesia or Malaysia.In Egypt while Muslim 3. males are free to marry Coptic Christian females, reciprocal rights are not available to Coptic Christian males cannot not marry Muslim females unless they convert to Islam. Similar laws prevail in Malaysia. Hindus cannot cremate their 4.

dead in Kuwait and many other Islamic states. Churches or temples cannot 5. be constructed in Saudi Arabia, nor even images of deities can be brought in. It is next to impossible to 6. marry native women for expatriates. Even if they marry, their children are not granted citizenship in most Arab countries of the Gulf. Most Muslim countries 7. do not accord the women the rights which Islam recognized. Women are more looked from the angle of modesty than as independent, autonomous, rational entity and equal citizens. Extremist regimes like the 8.

Taliban or forces like Boko Haram in Nigeria believe in segregation between Muslims and non-Muslims. Taliban asked Hindus and Sikhs to wear colour badges in public. They blasted the Buddha statues in Bamiyan. In Malaysia, Christians have 9. been judicially prohibited from using the word ‘Allah’ in their discourse or literature.

(This paper was presented by Maqbool Ahmed Siraj at the Henry Martyn Institute,

(HMI) Hyderabad, on October 2, 2014, as part of the October Course on “Islam and Interfaith Relations” organized by HMI). (He can be reached

at maqsiraj@gmail.com)

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AMU Students Set up SchoolMuzaffarnagar: Aligarh Muslim University Vice Chancellor Gen. Zameeruddin Shah laid the foundation stone for Sir Syed Public School in the Jwala village on the Kandhala Highway in the Muzaffarnagar district on October 9. Shah said Rs. 51 lakh saved last year by not celebrating the Sir Syed Day Dinner will be spent for

the construction of the school building. Chttan Khan and Kallan Khan, two residents of the Jwala village have donated 12 bighas of land for the school near Maulana Akhtar Abbas Colony. Salman Jaferi, an AMU alumni have also pledged a donation of Rs. 51 lakh for the school which will be affliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education. n

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understanding and bonding than verbal discussion about each other’s beliefs.If the Quran not only allows, but actually calls for interfaith dialogue, why is it that few Muslims appear to be enthusiastic advocates of such dialogue today? Gulen discusses this issue in the particular context of relations between Muslims and Christians.One reason for this, Gulen says, is the phenomenon of perceived Western domination. In the last century alone, he quotes a study as saying, ‘far more Muslims have been killed by Western powers than all Christians killed by Muslims throughout history.’ Additionally, many Muslims think that Western policies are designed to weaken Muslim power and that the West is continuing its 1000 year-old systematic aggression against Islam.Intolerant and exclusivist Islamist movements make prospects for dialogue between Muslims and others additionally difficult, Gulen indicates. He notes that

most Muslim countries entered the 20th century under European domination, and Muslim peoples’ anti-colonial movements were often spearheaded in the name of Islam. This led Islam to be perceived as an ideology of conflict and reaction and a political system, rather than as a religion that addresses people’s hearts, spirit and minds.Gulen sees—and rightly so—Muslims engaging in dialogue, including with Christians and the ‘West’—as an urgent necessity today. The first step for this, he writes, is ‘forgetting the past, ignoring polemical arguments and giving precedence to common points, which far outnumber polemical ones’. In this regard, he appeals to Muslims to recognise that the centuries-old struggle between Muslims and the ‘West’, which fuels Muslim opposition to, and resentment of, the ‘West’, ‘will never benefit Islam or Muslims’. He stresses that the ‘West’ ‘cannot wipe out Islam or its territory, and Muslim armies can no longer

march on the West.’Only one who is engaged in inner dialogue, to spiritually purify herself or himself, is truly qualified to engaged in dialogue with others. Interfaith dialogue cannot make any headway if dialogue partners don’t work on themselves. One has to embody the virtues that one preaches; otherwise, dialoguing can make no headway at all. In this regard, Gulen stresses the centrality of love, altruism, gentleness, universal compassion, tolerance and forgiveness in terms of inter-personal and inter-community relationships. If we aren’t loving, altruistic, gentle, compassionate, tolerant and willing to forgive people and overlook their faults, not only can we not engage in genuine dialogue with others, but we also cannot, Gulen indicates, measure up to what our religions expect of us.You don’t have to write a thick tome to say something profound, as this little booklet very aptly demonstrates! n

Dialogue between Muslims and the West ...

SAMARITAN HELP MISSION

Creating Opportunities Where None Exist!

Mamoon Akhtar is a man on a mission - The Samaritan Help Mission. Through this remarkable organization, he is changing the outlook for an entire area in West Bengal, bringing education, health, livelihoods and development to all the children, especially girls, living in the slums.

By Palak Bhatia City-dwellers have enjoyed the benefits of good education, healthcare and employment opportunities since many years. These are things that we have come to take for granted, things that are readily available to us. However, there are still a very large number of remote areas in India that continue to be isolated from such facilities and live in a relatively poor environment. In the absence of such basic necessities, the people of these areas have changed very little in their lifestyles and means of livelihood. They continue to struggle for survival in the dearth of requisite skills and education that can lead them towards bettering their situation. Samaritan Help Mission is a noteworthy organization striving to provide adequate facilities to the poor population of the Tikiapara region in West Bengal.Samaritan Help Mission is an organization that aims at providing developmental opportunities to the poor and needy slum children, with a special emphasis on young girls.

These are designed in a way so as to give them quality education and impart life skill education, so that their hidden talents and capacities are explored and developed. It is most essential to train the children for a secured livelihood so as to lead a productive and fruitful life

with self-esteem and self-dignity and to rise above the narrow consideration of caste, creed, community, religion or language to build a strong nation.It was the passionate appeal of a child wanting to go to school in the year 1991 that prompted the founder of this project, Mamoon Akhtar, to start teaching 5-6 children in his own house in the

Tikiapara slum. As the residents of the area became aware of this ‘school’, more and more children started coming and there was no place to seat them. Mamoon constructed a room on his own small plot of land (600 sq.ft.) and the one room Samaritan Help

Mission School was born with 25 young eager children flocking to it. Mamoon rose to the occasion and went from door to door to raise Rs.28, 000 p.a. (in addition to his own contribution of Rs. 10,000). The organization has continued to steadily grow through the years.Started in May 2007, the Samaritan Mission School is an English medium school for poor children

of all communities. Under the umbrella of Illiteracy Elimination project, it is especially aimed at girls who are deprived of the basic right of education. The parents of the children are very poor because of which, they cannot get access to modern education.

The children range from various underprivileged backgrounds like rickshaw pullers, daily labourers, etc. With Samaritan Help Mission’s efforts, their dreams have turned into reality. The school was run from pre-nursery to class 6 till 2009, and since then, every year has witnessed its expansion with one more class.Along with this, Samaritan Help Mission has also introduced many varied ventures to further improve the lifestyles of the poor by giving them opportunities that are not currently available to them. These programs allow them more liberty to become independent and self-sufficient, giving them a true chance at establishing an identity for themselves.Samaritan Help Mission also sustains a Computer Literacy Program, wherein computer fundamentals are taught to students in a small computer lab containing six computers. In less than four years, the venture has been able to make 675 poor girls computer- literate.Vocational Training Program for Women is aimed at unmarried and illiterate girls from poor backgrounds, who do not have any means to survive and earn their livelihood. Under this project, they are trained in Hand embroidery and provided work avenues to make their living. The training

project has about 200 women. 50 girls are regulars working in the manufacturing unit, with each girl earning between Rs.2500 and 3000 per month. These women are working regularly from 10 am to 5pm in the unit and are now very confident and financially and educationally empowered.Samaritan Micro-Credit Program was introduced in October 2008 and has so far provided 124 women with loans between Rs.1000 to 5000 to start their own small businesses. The focus has been on the vocational trainees who, after undergoing the necessary training to acquire the requisite skills, need a loan to start their own business. The program is proud of having zero defaults and has changed the economical condition of these women who earlier had to borrow at usurious rates as high as 10%

per month from the local loan shark.Because of the fact that health care for women and children in Tikiapara had become quite urgent,

Samaritan Health Care & Awareness Centre was inaugurated in June 2009. The centre treats around 80 patients daily. The focus of the health centre is mainly to spread awareness about health issues, start a cleanliness drive in the locality and also teach about family planning. A regular motivation campaign is also organized among the poor women who abort female foetuses, teaching them that our past, present and future are all dependent on young girls.To know more about their efforts or to help them in any way, do visit their website:http://samaritanhelpmission.org(Palak Bhatia is a freelance writer with several mainstream publications and an online shopping website. She also acts as a travel guide for an online travel information website). nSource: (http://www.thebetter-india.com/8906/samaritan-help-mission-creating-opportunities-none-exist/#sthash.CwVyw997.dpuf)

Mamoon Akhtar

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 16PeoPle tidBits

By A Staff Writer Bangalore: Dr. Benazeer Baig, secretary of the Raza Educational and Social Welfare Society will be attending the Empowerment for Women Leaders in India program to be held in Tokyo Kenshu Center in Japan from November 17 to 21. The programme is being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with HIDA (Japanese acronym for the Overseas Human Resources Development Association). Dr. Baig is Honorary Coordinator for National Commission for Minorities Educational Institution in Karnataka. She runs the Excellent School for children rescued from hotels, workshops and worksites in Bangalore for the

last two decades. The workshop has invited twenty women from India to study the practices by institutions managed by Japanese women. The workshop is being organized with the objective of enhancing leadership qualities of women.Dr. Baig will also be attending the World Innovation for Education (WISE-2014) conference in Doha, Qatar between November 4 and 6 prior to the event in Tokyo. WISE 2014 will explore to tap teacher’s and learner’s potential for innovation and creativity under the theme “Imagine-Create-Learn : Creativity at the Heart of Education. The WISE Prize for Education, now in its fourth year will also be presented in the conference.

Bangalore Woman invited to attend Meet in Japan

Malala’s Autobiography in Kannada: Nobel Peace Prize co-winner for 2014 from Pakistan (along with India’s Prakash Satiyarthi) Malala Yusufzai’s autobiography ‘I am Malala’ has been translated in Kannada by Jaya Prakash Narain on October 19. Titled ‘Nanu Malala’, it was released by noted Kannada litterateur Dr. Siddaliangaiah. Kannada writer Mohammed Kunhi spoke at the occasion.

Nahid Hassan Wrests Kairana seat: Nahid Hassan, Samajwadi Party candidate wrested the Kairana Assembly seat from BJP in the byelection held along with those in Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly on Oct. 13. He defeated the BJP candidate Anil Singh Chauhan by around 1,000 votes. The seat was consistently won by BJP’s Hukum Singh during the last four Assembly election. He vacated the seat after getting elected to Lok Sabha in May last. Curiously, Nahid Hassan’s uncle Arshad Hassan too contested the election but trailed far behind his nephew. Kairana falls under the Muzaffarnagar region which was rocked with communal riots in 2013.

Syed Mudassir has been appointed Estate Officer for the Tipu Shaheed Waqf Estate Development Committee at Srirangapatnam by the Karnataka State Board of Wakfs. He being the Waqf Officer of the Mandya District Wakf Advisory Committee, will hold additional charge of the Tipu Waqf Estate.

Woman to head Mosque CommitteeThe Islamic Society of Orange County (ISOC), a major Los Angeles area Muslim institution and probably one of the biggest mosques in America, has selected Duaa Hana Alwan to be its new

‘Penalty Unreasonable’: The National Football League (NFL) of the United States has admitted that Hussain Abdullah, the Muslim player of the Kansas Chief City team should not have been penalized for doing sajdah on the ground after the victory of the team against New England Patriots in the last week of September. Abdullah, a devout Muslim was slapped with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty after his Sajdah on the ground.

president. She succeeds Hassan Siddiqi.Duaa was born in the UK and raised in Madinah and moved from New Jersey to Garden Grove as a teen. She has a BA in Film Production from CSULB and MA in Film Studies from Chapman University. She was associated with several committees overseeing education and cultural affairs of the ISOC. She is married to Yaman Kahf and has three sons. Rafi Ahmed among 70 Leading US ScientistsThe Institute of Medicine (IOM) in the United States, has elected Rafi Ahmed, PhD, to its new class of 70 leading health scientists and 10 for-eign associates. He is recognized as a world renowned immunologist.Rafi Ahmed is director of the Emory Vaccine Center, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, a scientist at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and Charles Howard Candler Professor of Microbiology and Immunology in Emory University School of Medicine.Election to the IOM is one of the highest honours in the fields of health and medicine, and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.Under Ahmed’s continuing leadership, the Emory Vaccine Center is now one of the largest,

most comprehensive academic vaccine research centers in the world, with more than 30 faculty and a research staff of nearly 250, laboratories in New Delhi as well as

Atlanta, and more than $650 million in research funding over the past 18 years. The Vaccine Center’s research

Children’s Heroes Malala Yusufzai And Kailash Satyarthi

Malala Yusufzai, 17-year old girl from Swat Valley of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi from India have been conferred Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2014. These activists who have done a marvelous job

in ensuring a safe future for the children in Pakistan and India, need all our appreciation. Their struggle has assumed iconic proportions now that the whole world knows them.Malala who was shot in the head for bringing girls to school in the Pakhtun dominated Swat Valley of Pakistan. The fundamentalist Taliban had issued death threat against her and she was ultimately attacked by a Taliban assailant. It caused widespread indignation and outrage. Whole Pakistan rose against the diabolical attack against a young girl promoting education among girls. There were special prayers for her. Some organized candle-lit vigils. She was treated in the British hospital and regained an active life.

Awards poured in. She was given the Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award, European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Sitara e Shujaat, Pakistan’s third

highest award, Mother Reressa Memorial Award for Social Justice, Rome Prize for H u m a n i t a r i a n Action, International Campaigner of the Year Award by The Observer of London,

and several other awards. She was invited to speak at Harvard University, at the United Nations, met President Obama (ironically, it was the United States which had provided training and weapons to the Talibans to fight against the Soviets), and the Queen Elizabeth of England. The Time magazine listed her among the “100 most influential people in the world” in April 2013. Foreign Policy magazine described her as one among ‘Top 100 Global thinkers’ in November 2012.Former Cricketer and Pakistan Tehrik e Insaaf chief Imran Khan said Malala reprsents the struggle of girls and women everywhere against tyranny and oppression. We need more Malalas in our midst in order to take the light

Malala Yusufzai and Kailash Satyarthi

of education to every child, specially girl children in order that the Islamic society gets rid of patriarchy which is entrenched so deep into its culture.Kailash Satyarthi has also emerged as a hero of children’s rights. His Bachpan Bachao Andolan has so far rescued 83,000 children from child labour and financial exploitation of the children. An electrical engineer, he quit teaching in 1980 and plunged into rescuing children from labour sites and organizing schooling for them.Kailash has argued that child labour perpetuates poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, population growth, and other social problems, and his claims have been supported by several studies. He also established the ‘Rugmark’ as a certification for carpets which have been woven without child labour. Usually, the carpet looms employ children as their nimble fingers said to be very efficient in movement. He created awareness in the world carpet market about this sad reality and saw to it that consumers opted for only those carpets that carried Rugmark.Kailash deserves all appreciation for his excellent work in restoring childhood to thousands of children in India.

NFL spokesman Michael Signora said players are not allowed to celebrate while on the ground but this was different. The penalty was criticized by several writers on the social media. Fattest Pilgrim: Palestinian woman Naimah Marhoon, 55, weighing 300 kgs performed the Hajj pilgrimage on an ambulance. She was a special invitee by the Saudi Government. Naimah, a widow, who lost her

husband eleven years ago in Israeli bombardment of Gaza area, lives in Khan Yunis. She was taken to Egypt and from their flown to Jeddah. The Saudi Government made special arrangement to take her round the points of pilgrimage. Six ordinary wheelchairs that she used during the pilgrimage crashed due to her weight. She was one among the 150 kin of Palestinian martyrs who were invited by the Saudi Government.

spans the entire spectrum from fundamental laboratory science, to nonhuman primate studies, to clinical trials through the Hope Clinic, to public policy initiatives.Ahmed did his B.Sc from Osmania University, Hyderabad and later studies for his MS at Idaho State University and PhD from Harvard University in 1981. He joined the Emory University in 1995. Makkah: Key-bearer of Holy Kaaba, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheibi died in the third week of October. A descendant of Osman Abi Talha,

who was asked to retain the keys of the Kaaba at the time of conquest of Makkah (despite he having opposed the Holy Prophet), Al-Sheibi had 17 children. He was buried in Jannat

al Malla cemetery in Makkah. He was the official key-bearer for the last 16 years.The key of the Kaaba does not change with the change of its door. During the time of King Khaled, the door was

changed but the key remained the same. The Holy Kaaba is cleaned twice a year; once in the middle of the lunar month of Shaaban and the

second in the middle of Zul Qaada.

Died: Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, senior leader of the People’s Democratic Party and noted Shia leader from Jammu and Kashmir died after prolonged illness on September 30 in Srinagar. Ansari represented Patan constituency in the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly. He was president of the Jammu & Kashmir Shia Association and Chairman of the Imam Hussain Hospital located in the Hamdania Colony. He escaped three attempts on his life during the militancy in the State. He was buried in Jaddi Bal graveyard.

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 17

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BooK review

Dialogue between Muslims and the WestAn Urgent Necessity

The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue—A Muslim PerspectiveM. Fethullah GulenThe Light, Inc., Somerset, New Jersey, USAISBN: 1-932099-65-4

The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue—A Muslim PerspectiveM. Fethullah GulenThe Light, Inc., Somerset, New Jersey, USAISBN: 1-932099-65-4

Reviewed by: Roshan Shah

One of the most serious threats that humanity is faced with today is terror in the name of religion. And perhaps nowhere is this problem more severe than in the ‘Muslim world’. Many Muslim countries are presently racked with violence unleashed by groups that claim to represent Islam. In several countries where Muslims are a minority, violent conflicts involving Muslims and dominant communities have flared up in recent years. In this context, the need for Muslims to engage in dialogue with others for resolving conflicts and for mutual enrichment remains as urgent today as it has always been.The well-known Turkish Islamic scholar-activist Fethullah Gulen is one of the leading Muslim advocates of interfaith dialogue at the global level. In this slim booklet, he outlines the case, from an Islamic perspective, for the need for interfaith dialogue. As he sees it, such dialogue is no luxury for Muslims that they can afford to ignore. Rather, it is an Islamic commandment.Gulen contends that the manifold problems humanity is faced with today stem, in large measure, from the materialist worldview that threatens to overwhelm the world. This worldview, he writes, has shaken the delicate balance between humanity and nature, between people as well within individual human beings. It is only religion, he believes, that can restore this balance, reconciling the seemingly mutually-exclusive opposites of religion and science, this world and the next, body and

spirit. Religion alone can erect a formidable defence against the enormous destruction wrought by the hegemony of ‘scientific materialism’ and put science in its proper place. Moreover, religion alone can bring about genuine peace between communities

and within individuals. ‘Peace with nature, peace and justice in society, and personal integrity are possible when one is at peace with Heaven’, Gulen remarks.In this regard, inter-religious dialogue has an important role to play, Gulen stresses. Given that ‘scientific materialism’ emanated from, and has almost wholly overwhelmed, the West, interfaith dialogue, especially between Muslims and Western Christians, can help highlight the necessity of religion for the very existence of humanity. Through such dialogue, Gulen seems to believe, the virtual hegemony of ‘scientific materialism’ and the destructive, dehumanizing materialist worldview might be effectively undermined. But this is not the only purpose of interfaith dialogue, Gulen explains. Such dialogue is also necessary because the very nature of religion—all religions, including Islam—demands it.In our increasingly interlinked world, we cannot afford to remain hostile islands, cut off from each other, Gulen reminds us. There

is simply no alternative today to harmony and dialogue between people of different faiths. This dialogue can be mutually enriching for all partners, for each of us has something to share that the others might gain from. For instance, Gulen suggests that through dialogue, Muslims can

gain from Western contributions to science, while Westerners can benefit from the spiritual treasures of Islam, which can help extricate humanity from the morass of materialism.Gulen points out that there are ‘many common points for dialogue among devout Muslims, Christians and Jews’—presumably because of their common Semitic heritage of their historical traditions. Although he does not specifically refer to Muslims dialoguing with people who follow other, non-Semitic traditions—such as Buddhists and Hindus—he might, one supposes, consider this as equally Islamically-valid, given that, as he acknowledges, all religions share a common ethical core, based on values such as love, respect, tolerance, forgiveness, altruism, respect for human rights, mercy, peace, brotherhood, and freedom.Gulen reminds his readers that for a person to be regarded as a Muslim, he or she must accept all the prophets and Divine revelations sent by God to all of humanity throughout history.

Muslims thus acknowledge the oneness and basic unity and universality of religion—and this is a major basis for Muslims to engage in dialogue with others.Gulen sees the Quran as calling on Muslims to engage in interfaith dialogue. Thus, the Quran (3:64) says:“Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to an agreement between us and you: that we shall worship none but Allah, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside Allah.”Worship of the one God, Gulen says, is ‘the widest statement on which members of all religions could agree’ and which could enable ‘followers of the revealed religions […] [to] overcome their mutual separation’. If this call is rejected, Muslims are expected to respond by stressing ‘To you is your religion, and to me is my

religion’ (Quran 109:6).Gulen suggests that the Quran not only instructs Muslims to engage in dialogue with others, but also indicates how this dialogue should be carried out—‘in a way that is best’. Thus, it says, ‘And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best, except for those who commit injustice among them, and say, “We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him.”’ (Quran 29:46). Interfaith dialogue at the level of religious beliefs is not all that is involved in relating to people of other faiths, however. Everyday social interaction between people of different religious backgrounds can often be an even more effective way of communication,

Gulen suggests that the Quran not only instructs Muslims to engage in dialogue with others, but also

indicates how this dialogue should be carried out—‘in a way that is best’.

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 18In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful

Affluence and People's Behavior

It is He who accepts the repentance of His servants and pardons bad deeds. He knows everything you do. He responds to those who believe and do righteous deeds, and gives them much more of His bounty; but as for the unbelievers, severe suffering awaits them. If God were to grant plentiful provisions to His servants, they would behave on earth with much insolence. As it is, He bestows from on high in due measure, as He wills. He is fully aware of His creatures, and He sees them all. It is He who sends down rain when they have lost all hope, and spreads His grace far and wide. He is the Protector, worthy of all

praise. (Consultation, Al-Shura: 42: 25-28)

These verses of the surah point to signs confirming the truth of faith within people's own selves and in the wide horizons. Further discussion is added about God's power and its evidence in people's surroundings and what affects their livelihood. The distinctive qualities of believers also come in for discussion. Toward the end of the surah, we have further discussions on what the first part focused on, namely, revelation, its nature and how it is delivered. The two parts are closely linked, as both address the human heart and put the way to faith before us.These verses follow immediately after the verses that show the wrongdoers dreading having to face what they have done, given that it will inevitably fall back on them. Those verses also painted an image of the believers as they revel in their rewards, secure in the flowering meadows of paradise. Moreover, those earlier verses confirmed what the Prophet (peace be upon him) delivered to them of God's message and stated that God is fully aware of what their hearts may harbor.As this second part opens, it calls on people to turn to God and abandon their erroneous ways before a final judgment is passed on them. The door to repentance is left wide open. God Almighty accepts repentance and pardons bad deeds. Hence, there is no need to despair, go further into disobedience, or panic because of the sins they have committed. God knows what they do, and He certainly knows sincere repentance and accepts it, just as He knows their past sins and pardons them for these.Again the surah refers to what believers and unbelievers will receive in reward or punishment.

Those who believe and do good deeds are the ones who respond to their Lord's call. He, therefore, gives them an increase of His bounty. By contrast, "As for the unbelievers, severe suffering awaits them."Yet the door to repentance, which will spare the repentant all suffering, is open to all at all times. Any unbeliever who repents will qualify for God's bounty which is, in the life to come, plentiful, unlimited.In this life, however, it is given according to a set criterion. God knows that in their lives on earth, human beings cannot cope with God's bounty should it be given to them without measure: "If God were to grant plentiful provisions to His servants, they would behave on earth with much insolence. As it is, He bestows from on high in due measure, as He wills. He is fully aware of His creatures, and

He sees them all."Compared to the limitless bounty granted in the hereafter, the provisions people have in this life, no matter how abundant they may seem, are very small indeed. God knows that His human creatures can only cope with a small measure of richness. If He were to grant them abundance, of the sort He grants them in the life to come, they would behave with much insolence. They are too small to maintain their balance; too weak to cope with their burdens when these exceed a certain limit. God is fully aware of their limitations. Therefore, He keeps His bounty to them in this present life within the limits they can cope with. He keeps His unlimited bounty till later, and gives it only to those who pass the test of this life, reaching the life to come in safety. They will then receive His limitless bounty."It is He who sends down rain when they have lost all hope, and spreads His grace far and wide. He is the Protector, worthy of all praise."Again, we are reminded of some aspects of God's grace as He bestows it on people living on earth. We see them here when they have gone without rain for sometime. They feel their powerlessness as water, life's

necessity, is denied to them. They are in total despair. At this point, the skies open and God's grace is spread far and wide. The land is alive again, green shoots spring up, the seeds that have been planted, promise a good yield, the weather moderates, smiles are back on people's faces and hope is

regained. What separates the old despair from the new hope is no more than a few minutes during which the gates of God's grace are open and rain pours down:

"He is the Protector, worthy of all praise." His help is available at all times. He is not only worthy of praise in Himself but also for all His attributes.The Arabic text uses the term

ghayth to refer to rain. The term connotes providing emergency help for those who are in desperate need. The effects are given as God "spreads His grace", which enhances feelings of hope and happiness that we actually experience as we look at the emerging vegetation. Nothing has a greater comforting and calming effect on people than rain pouring

down after a period of drought. Nothing helps to remove tension and worry better than seeing the land blooming after it has been barren and desolate. n

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 19

The Prophet’s (Pbuh) Inexhaustible Patience

The source of the Prophet’s courageous determination in the face of all the traumatic experiences he suffered was his strong faith in God and his dependence on Him.

By Shahul Hameed

One of the marvelous qualities of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was his infinite patience.God was with Muhammad, as He is always with those who patiently persevere: “God is certainly with those who patiently persevere.” (Qur’an, 2:153)The Qur’anic word used for patience is ‘sabr’ and there is no English equivalent for it.We can convey the idea of sabr only by phrases such as endurance against afflictions, patience with delay, perseverance against hardships, steadfastness in the face of setbacks, courage against hostilities, self-restraint against provocations, will power against temptations, and equanimity or calmness of mind as regards fortunes and misfortunes.The Prophet was a perfect model to his followers. His life was the shining example of a man of extraordinary endurance: His father died before his birth; his mother died when he was only 6 years old; and his grandfather who took up his guardianship also died soon. Then it was his uncle Abu Talib who protected him.And when God appointed him His last Prophet, he was faced with the most brutal persecution and hostility from his own people. But these harsh experiences of life did not make him a cynic; on the contrary, they perfected his faith

in God, making him all the more strongly committed to his God-given mission. During the 13 years of his life in Makkah as the messenger of God, he faced all forms of abuse, boycott, expulsion and threats of physical violence. Yet he never budged an inch away from his mission. Rather he was gentle, considerate and sympathetic even to his enemies.During the early days of his preaching, the people of Makkah had approached him through his uncle Abu Talib and made very tempting offers to him, such as the leadership of the city of Makkah, and wealth of immense proportions.The Prophet spurned all these offers and said: “I swear by the name of God, O Uncle, that if they place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand in return for giving up this matter (calling people to Islam), I will never desist until either God makes it triumph or I perish defending it.”This steadfastness and constancy against temptations was unusual in an Arab of those days.And imagine the day when the Prophet had to leave his home, his city, and his people and emigrate to another place! The Hijrah, as the emigration of the Prophet from Makkah to Madinah is known, was a great sacrifice and a painful decision for the Prophet at the

time when he undertook it. But his personal comforts, likes, and dislikes had no value in the face of the immense task before him.One remembers the time when he and his companion Abu Bakr were almost overcome by their pursuers in the Cave of Thawr. When Abu Bakr in dismay told the Prophet that they were only two persons against the enemy, he told him with

unflinching faith in the Almighty not to grieve, as God was with them.Prophet Muhammad has taught us: “When you ask for anything, ask it from God, and if you seek help, seek the help of God. Know that if the people were to unite to do you some benefit, they could benefit you only with what God had recorded for you, and that if they were to unite to do you some injury, they could injure you only with what God had recorded for you. The pens are withdrawn and the pages are dry.” (At-Tirmidhi, 1515)The source of the Prophet’s

courageous determination in the face of all the traumatic experiences he suffered was his strong faith in God and his dependence on Him. The Prophet’s conviction that God was with him when he was struggling with adverse circumstances, is evident from this teaching: “Strange are the ways of a believer for there is good in every affair of his, and this

is not the case with anyone else except in the case of a believer; for if he has an occasion to feel delight, he thanks (God); thus there is a good for him in it, and if he gets into trouble and shows resignation (and endures it patiently), there is a good for him in it.” (Muslim, 2999)The Prophet was always considerate and understanding, even towards those who were ignorant and arrogant towards him.

Indeed his gentleness and patience with them earned their love and respect, as God says in the Qur’an: “Thus it is due to mercy from God that you deal with them gently, and had you been rough and hard-hearted, they would certainly have dispersed from around you.” (Qur’an, 3:159)An incident at the Prophet’s mosque in Madinah demonstrates how lenient and kind the Prophet was to ignorant people. Abu Hurairah reports: “A bedouin urinated in the mosque and some people rushed to beat him. The Prophet said, ‘Leave him alone and pour a bucket of water over it. You have been sent

to make things easy and not to make them difficult’ (Al-Bukhari, 6025)Once a man approached the Prophet seeking advice, and the Prophet said: “Do not get angry.” The man asked for advice several times and the Prophet replied every time, “Do not get angry.” (Al-Bukhari, 48).The questioner was probably one disposed to a quick temper, and so the Prophet was stressing the need to control his anger. The Prophet also said: “He who is deprived of forbearance and gentleness is, in fact, deprived of all good.” (Muslim, 638)We may remember the day of the Makkah Victory: The Prophet reentered the city after 10 long years of living in Madinah. Practically there was no opposition to him. The whole of Makkah lay at his feet as he marched in. His enemies stood in surrender awaiting his verdict.The Prophet gave amnesty to all his former enemies. He told them: “You may go. You are free people.” (Authenticated by Al-Albani)Unfaltering loyalty to the cause of God is the virtue of prophets. Prophet Muhammad was a brilliant example of a man committed to his divinely appointed mission. So it is no wonder that he stood firm against all opposition and finally succeeded in winning over the hearts and minds of millions.For those who practice sabr, there is always the unfailing promise and prospect of a never-ending world of felicity.

(ArabNews)Being Humble is a Prophetic Tradition

A woman who was afflicted with partial derangement in her mind said: “O Messenger of Allah, I want something from you.” He said: “See on which side of the road you would like [to stand and talk] so that I may help you.” He then stood aside with her on the roadside until she got what she needed.” (Muslim, 2326)In this short hadith, we learn about the humility of the Prophet (peace be upon him). If he so wanted, the Prophet could have stood on the road and spoken to the woman. And he would have been praised for it. But he did not think himself so important as to block the road even while doing a good deed.In addition, the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not admonish the woman for approaching him in a coarse way. Nor did he turn his nose up at her because she was disturbed. Instead, he treated her with kindness and provided her with what she needed.The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) knew that no one is more important than another. He also knew that if Allah had willed, he would be in the same mental state as the woman.

A companion of the Prophet named Nu’ayman was addicted to alcohol and continued to drink it despite knowing the ruling against intoxicants. Nu’ayman struggled with his addiction, and was flogged twice for being drunk.Upon the second flogging, Omar, who was angered by Nu’ayman’s behavior, quipped: “May God’s curse be on him.”The Prophet was quick to intervene: “No, no, don’t do [such a thing]. Indeed he loves God and His Apostle. The major sin [as this] does not put one outside the community and the mercy of God is close to the believers.” (Al-Bukhari)The Prophet was not too proud to associate with this man who committed a major sin. He did not isolate this man because of his faults. Nor was

he too proud to defend Nu’ayman from Umar’s insult.The Prophet knew that Allah created us with weakness and that driving those who sin out of Islam would leave the Ummah empty.We need to protect ourselves from thinking we are better than others. We must understand that the foundation of humility is knowing that if we are elevated in status, it is only because of Allah. We can be brought to the level of those we look down on if Allah wills.The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) asked Allah for humility by saying: “O Allah, make me live humbly and make me die humbly, and gather me among the humble on the day of resurrection.” (At-Tirmidhi, 2352)

Humility

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 20

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oUr dialoGUe

Change came about, but how?

Q: I was a person who cared very little about religion. I almost ridiculed religion and those who were religious. I have even rejected the existence of God and demonstrated that rejection in an outrageous manner. Yet, one day in November last year, it all changed. Waking up one

morning, I started crying and kept saying "please forgive me, my Lord." Since that day, I have stopped smoking, drinking and all other sinful habits. How could all this have happened?

A: Everything which is made or manufactured provides a testimony to its maker and its manufacturer. If it is of high quality, then we conclude that the one who is responsible for making it is an excellent professional or a master craftsman, etc. The universe which is all Allah's creation, gives a most eloquent testimony to the great power of its Maker, Allah, glorified be He. There are so many signs, indicators and pointers throughout the universe, in the world around us, in our lives and within ourselves which emphasize the basic truth of Allah's existence and His supremacy in the universe. Allah has given all these indicators and asked us to contemplate on them and to draw out conclusions. He knows that when we think logically about creation and about the universe, the basic truth will inescapably stare us in the face. It is up to us to accept it and act upon it or pretend that we do not see it. When someone aggressively tries to emphasize his rejection of faith, he is subconsciously trying to justify his attitude of willfully turning a deaf ear to the call of faith. He wants to smother the voice within him which tells him that he is following the wrong

way. He continues to do this until such an attitude of arrogant disbelief becomes a second nature to him.As human beings, we are all amenable to accepting faith in the same degree. As you undoubtedly realize, Allah requires everyone of us to believe in the same set of truths which form the true faith of submission to Him alone. This applies in the same degree to simple, uneducated people as well as to the most educated and sophisticated minds. When we remember that Allah's justice is absolute, we conclude that we must have the same amenability or susceptibility to accepting the faith and conducting our lives on its principles. Hence, there is no human being who can be described as a natural disbeliever. Indeed, if people remain true to their nature, they will want to know their creator and they will continue to pursue a proper satisfaction of their inherent desire to be believers. The best proof of this susceptibility is the fact that Allah addressed us all with his message in the same language and in the same manner. The Qur'an, Allah's revealed book which contains the final and complete version of

His message to mankind, speaks to all people alike. It does not distinguish between those who are highly educated and those who have never been to school. There is no doubt that people who are endowed with knowledge can have a profound understanding of Allah's message. It is equally true, however, that Allah's message touches certain cores within man which make us all willing to submit ourselves to Him.When we reflect on this fact, we recognize that Allah's grace has been bestowed on us in abundance. It is He who sent us messages to point to us the way which will lead us to happiness in this life as well as in the life to come. It is He who has brought this process of sending messages to its final stage when he sent Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, with the complete and final form of the divine message. It is He who has guaranteed to preserve this message intact for the rest of time so that all generations will have access to it whenever they want. It is He who has made us responsive to His call and facilitated for us acceptance of it by making that acceptance the door which leads us to a life of

happiness in this world and one of greater happiness in the hereafter.Had Allah left things at that and imposed on us the duty to believe in Him and live up to our faith, His grace would have been most abounding and we should have no excuse for not responding to His message and following His messenger, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who conveyed to us Allah's last message. But Allah has bestowed on us much more of His grace. In the life of every single one of us, there are moments when we find ourselves literally at the cross-roads between faith and unbelief. These moments represent chances offered to every single one of us to follow the right direction. We either take the chance so offered or we allow it to pass as though meant for someone else. What is special about these moments or these chances is that at these particular points in time, we see the issues involved most clearly. We are actually beckoned in a most appealing way to follow the path of Islam. Yet, many of us deride that chance and choose to go in the opposite direction.I know someone whose determination to diligently follow the path of Islam is exemplary. Yet nothing in his upbringing

could have helped him make such a choice. Neither of his parents cared about giving their child any sort of religious education. They sent him to a school which regarded religious education a luxury that could not be afforded. He told me about one moment in his life when he could feel that the choice was put to him in front of his eyes. The issues were so clear that what he saw could have very well been in the material world.How do these moments or chances come about is something that Allah alone knows. What we know is that they do not come to all of us in the same way, nor does the chance repeat itself in the same manner twice. These are moments when our spiritual vision, as it were, of the facts of existence is at its clearest. These moments are part of the guidance with which Allah has provided us. None of us is forgotten. Each one of us is responsible and is given his chance.Perhaps what has happened to you was that you have experienced such a moment. It may be something at which you could not point finger, but it is nevertheless real. Allah has enabled you to see things as they truly are and to make the right choice. For that you must thank Allah for the rest of your life, since you undoubtedly are enjoying the blessings of being at peace with yourself and with the universe around you. It is that peace which brings to the faithful a happiness that is inexhaustible.Day of Judgment: Signs and Indications

Q: Are there any signs and indications of the approach of the day of judgment? Could you please outline them?

A: There are very clear statements in the Qur'an concerning the day of resurrection. The first is that its timing is known only to God who keeps it to Himself: "They question you concerning the hour and when it will come. Say: 'Its knowledge belongs to my Lord. He alone will reveal it at its appointed time." (7:187) We also know that it will arrive suddenly. "It will overtake you without warning."We are told in the Qur'an that it will be preceded by strange happenings in the universe. One of these is that a walking creature will come out of the earth which will speak to people. This is a true piece of information mentioned in Verse 82 of Surah 27, entitled 'The Ants.' We do not know exactly what sort of creature this will be, but it must be something like animals, because the word used

to denote it is normally used to refer to walking animals. Since God has not given us any more information about this creature, we do not venture to say any more. We only say that we believe the Qur'anic statement as it is, knowing that God is able to do what He pleases in the manner and fashion He chooses.Another indication which the Qur'an has mentioned is the release of Gog and Magog after the collapse of the wall which separates them from us. We do not know who are Gog and Magog, or where their land lies, or where the wall is. If we manage to identify these on the basis of research and linking various sorts of evidence and we come up with a conclusion which is not contrary to the Qur'an, we accept it. Otherwise, we accept the Qur'anic statement

in its generality.There are other indications which have been outlined in authentic Hadiths, such as true knowledge becomes scanty, while ignorance becomes widespread. Drinking intoxicants and adultery becomes commonplace. Women become greater in number than men, and honesty becomes a rare commodity in human society. Social standards become inconsistent, and lowly people rise in society. The impostor will make his appearance when he will delude a great many people. None but the true believers will be able to recognize that he is an impostor. The second coming of Jesus, the Messiah, will then follow, and he will certainly support the message of God's final Prophet, Muhammad, peace be upon him.

The Purpose of our Birth Q: Is anything mentioned in the Qur'an

regarding the purpose of our birth? It seems that we are born to eat, work, sleep and get married,

and perhaps pray, but to create problems for others as well. Are we, Muslims, doing anything good for the benefit of human beings, as the West

is doing? It looks as if we are living our lives without any specific purpose or goal.

A: You may be true about the condition of Muslims nowadays, the large majority of whom do not seem to have any specific purpose in life. But that is their own fault as they seem to neglect looking into their main sources of faith to determine their duties and their mission in life.However, it is clearly mentioned in the Qur'an that God has created us to put us to a test so that we may prove who of us can utilize his life to the best purpose. God states in the Qur'an:

"He is the One who created the heavens and the earth in six days. His throne rises over the water, so He may test you: Who is finest in action." (11;7)In the system of God's creation, there are the angels who can do only what is good. At no time can an angel do something evil or disobey God. On the other hand, Satans are the opposites: They can do only evil. Man is given the power of choice and he determines for himself whether to

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 21GUidance

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The Purpose of our Birth...follow the guidance provided by God through his messengers or to indulge in satisfying his wanton desires. The test is made clear for man right from his early years and the chance to rectify his attitude and choose what is good for him is offered at every juncture. In fact, if he errs, he can at any moment correct his error, repent and turn to God for forgiveness. If he does so, then he is forgiven. When people abandon God's guidance, their lives on earth seem to be nothing more than eating, drinking and self-indulgence. God says in the Qur'an:"God will admit the ones who believe and perform righteous deeds into gardens through which rivers flow, while those who disbelieve will enjoy themselves

and eat just as animals do, and the fire will be their lodging place." (47;12)You add that some people who pray also create problems for others. I am afraid that not many people do pray, but quite many of them are guilty of mischief, and try to take advantage of others, paying no attention to other people's interest.You ask whether we do any good for the benefit of other human beings, citing the example of Westerners as do-gooders. I can say that as a community, a nation, or followers of a great faith, most of us do not do much good.However, some of us, in our little way, do a great deal for other people. Nevertheless, the example you have chosen does not serve

your purpose well. In order to be clear, I acknowledge without hesitation that as individuals, the majority of Western people are good in their own way. But when we speak of a society and a government, then it is the West which has spent and is still spending so much on arms of mass destruction, selling them to countries in the Third World and encouraging them to make their countries experimental battle fields, thus sapping their resources and keeping them in continuing poverty. I realize that we should not blame the West for our own mistakes, but when we speak of the West as governments and societies working for the benefit of mankind, then our argument may be heavily lopsided. n

Make Yourself a Creative MindDoing something as a result of conscious planning develops a person’s mind and leads to creative thinking.

By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan Bertrand Russell started his life as a star personality. But when he died at the age of 97, his was a case of frustration. What was the reason behind this tragedy? Russell says of himself in his autobiography: “When I survey my life, it seems to me to be a useless one, devoted to impossible ideals. My activities continue from force of habit, and in the company of others, I forget the despair which underlies my daily pursuits and pleasure. But when I am alone and idle, I cannot conceal from myself that my life has no purpose, and that I know of no new purpose to which to devote my remaining years.”An analysis of the above statement gives us the answer. One of Russell’s cherished goals was the establishment of a “single supreme world government”

able to enforce peace. According to him, the only

thing that would redeem mankind was cooperation, which could be achieved only through a world government. Russell devoted his life to the achievement of this goal. However, he failed utterly.Failure in life is not final defeat. Failure means that a man has failed in achieving the first choice, but he still has the second choice. Bertrand Russell failed to discover the second choice. This was Russell’s real failure.It is said that Russell was a voracious reader. However, according to his own confession, his study was done out of habit. Habit is a recurrent, unconscious pattern of behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition. This was Russell’s

weakness. He studied a lot, but he did so as a habit rather than by way of conscious planning. If you do something as a matter of conscious planning, it will

make your mind creative. But, if you do

something as a habit, then it will not develop creative

thinking.Doing something as a result of conscious planning develops

a person’s mind and leads to creative thinking. One who plans thus is capable of engaging in introspection, reassessing his work and taking a U-turn in his life. Then he can make a new choice for himself. A creative mind is a live mind, which is in a position to take new decisions every moment.The ideal that Russell had set as his goal was not achievable. Had Russell cultivated a creative mind, he would have re-examined his goal and made a new choice. This would have made his life meaningful once again.Experience shows that people generally lack creative thinking. The reason for this is that people mostly do not consciously plan their activities. Instead they work out of habit. Even if they begin their work by conscious planning, they slowly become habituated to

it and start working unconsciously. Such a person cannot take a new decision in life. He will live as a prisoner of his habits, although what is right is for him to have a living mind.Man should do everything as a result of conscious planning. In this way, man will never fall prey to frustration. If his goal is right, it will lead him towards achievement. But if his goal is not right, his creative mind will take a new decision and reset his priorities.Habit is a general term. It covers almost all human activities, from becoming addicted to alcohol to being part of politics – everything comes under its purview.Frustration is only for those who do things habitually. Those who do things by way of conscious planning can never become victims of frustration. n

The Best Story, as per the QuranlivinG islam

Do not react to the situation, try to manage it and soon you will emerge as the master of the situation.

In its chapter twelve, the Quran narrates a story. Quran mentions it as the best of stories. This is the story of Prophet Joseph. The Prophet Joseph with his father and stepbrothers lived in Palestine. When Joseph was in his teenage, his step brothers became jealous of him. They managed to cast him in a dry well situated in a jungle. But God came to his rescue — a caravan

spotted him in the well and pulled him out. Later, they sold him as a slave in an Egyptian market. Thus he reached from Palestine to Egypt.Luckily his master was a courtier of the Egyptian King. In terms of religion, the king was an idol worshiper, while Joseph, who belonged to the family of Abraham, was a believer in the oneness of

God. After some years, when Joseph reached the age of maturity, he came in contact with the King. The King was greatly impressed by his personality and wisdom. He offered him a high office in his government. In present terms, it can be said that this was the ministry of agriculture. According to the Biblical narration, the Egyptian king said:

“You shall be over my house, and all my people shall be ruled according to your word; only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you.” (Gen. 42:40)Joseph accepted this offer and s u c c e s s f u l l y managed the a g r i c u l t u r a l affairs of the land at the time when there was a severe drought in Egypt and also in the adjacent areas. People became so happy that they accepted him as their hero. After narrating this story, the Quran says:“God does not waste the reward of those who do good, who are righteous and steadfast.” (12:90)What were Joseph’s qualities which elevated him to the aforementioned high status? After reading his story, given in the Quran, we can summarize these qualities in these words:Joseph’s stepbrothers plotted an evil plan against him which was tantamount to having him killed. But Joseph never developed any kind of hate or revenge against them. Instead, he forgave them

and received them with good behavior as mentioned in the Quran.The caravan of traders sold him as a slave in the Egyptian market, but he never protested against

the caravan. He never said that I am a man and you are using me as a marketable commodity.When in Egypt, he never created any problem against his master or against the king.He kept patience against the culture of idol-worshipers

that was prevalent in Egypt at that time. Following the principle of avoidance, he availed the opportunity given to him by the Egyptian rulers.The Prophet Joseph, like other Prophets, was not simply a religious guide, he was also a best guide for the secular fields of life, in this sense, his message was a universal message. The gist of his message was – don’t react to the situation, try to manage it and soon you will emerge as the master of the situation.(By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan)

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 22soUl talK

Job Opening for Office Assistant

Islamic Voice requires MALE office assistant with good knowledge of computer data entry/ emails and typing letters. The candidate should have good communication and inter-personal skills to handle field work related to office like going to the bank, post office, printing press and other miscellaneous office work on scooter.The candidate should be aged preferably between 35 to 50 years, should be honest, punctual and follow office rules of records, book keeping, and timings.Interested candidates can send their C V by mail to awskhan@gmail.com or editor@islamicvoice.com.By post, send your CV to The Manager, Islamic Voice, No 3/1, Palmgrove Road, Victoria Layout. Bangalore-560047.

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OUR AGENTS

Interfaith Living for Interfaith Harmony

It’s only when you live with people of other faiths for an extended period of time that you can begin to really understand them—as fellow human beings.

say that reading about interfaith dialogue and participating in seminars about it is useless. Before

coming here, I did a lot of that,’ he commented. ‘But it’s only when you live with people of other faiths for an extended period of time that you can begin to really understand them—as fellow human beings, with the same joys and sorrows and fears and hopes as yourself. Only then can you begin to appreciate and, yes, even love, them. Only then can the walls of separation between the communities begin to crumble, as has happened with myself!’‘In this one month, I’ve met and made friends with many Hindus and Muslims’, he went on. ‘It’s amazing how in such a short time I’ve begun to discover and appreciate the abundant goodness in these people, and in their religions, too. There’s really

By A Staff Writer At the centre where I work, we have a wonderful way of beginning our day: with a short devotion, which anyone from among us can lead. We have people from different faith backgrounds in our team, and so our morning devotion is a wonderful way for us to get to learn a bit about different religions.Today’s devotion was led by a student—a graduate from a Christian seminary from northeastern India. He’s been at our centre for a little more than a month now. This is the first time for him to be able to live among and interact closely with people of different faith backgrounds. This experience was what he reflected on this morning. ‘Living with Muslims and Hindus, in just a month I’ve learned as well as unlearned so much!’ he explained. ‘I don’t

nothing like interfaith living together and personal friendships as a means to build bridges between people of different faiths!’The young man made another very

pertinent observation: ‘It’s easy to glibly sermonize about how our religions insist that we must love and accept our neighbours irrespective of religion. But that

sort of love I think is possible only at a later stage. Generally speaking, you can begin to love and truly care for someone only if you have established at least some common interest with that

person. This holds true at the inter-community level, too.’‘You really can’t have much love and harmony between different communities if the members of these communities lack issues of common concern or interest,’ he explained. ‘And so, one first needs to explore such areas of possible common interest—issues of common concern to the different communities, such as, say, environmental pollution or poverty or crime or consumerism, Godlessness

and irreligiousness or the breakdown of the institution of the family, issues that affect all communities. Then, one can go about encouraging people from

the different communities to work together on these common issues. The interaction and shared living that happens in the course of working with each other on issues of common concern would itself engender close bonds of friendship between people of different faith backgrounds. That’s the most effective solvent of communal prejudices and stereotypes that I can think of!’Having attended numerous interfaith conferences over the past two decades and read several dozen books on inter-community harmony, I couldn’t agree more with what the young man said. While I don’t discount the importance of ‘academic’ work on interfaith dialogue, nor the value of advocating it from the pulpits of churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, I’ve realized that no amount of preaching dialogue or theologizing about it can take the place of plain and simple cross-religious friendships—as this young man discovered from his own experience of living for just about a month with people from different religious backgrounds!

Making Education Musical ...is a refreshing change which the students love. They look forward to her classes and are much more focused and learning faster.Using multimedia as a tool to spread this innovative teaching style across India, Sheikh has started a new revolution in the field of teaching. Currently working with students in Diu and Gujarat, Sheikh wants to expand this initiative to other parts of the country as well. She wants other teachers to replicate what she is doing in order to

reach out to many more students. Experimenting with new ragas is also on her agenda.It is teachers like her who are taking this profession to another level. You can watch various videos from her classes’ here – (https://www.youtube.com/user/taslimasheikh2012)(Source: http://www.thebe t t e r ind i a . com/14066 /government-school-teacher-taslima-sheikh-using-music-mul t imedia- in te rne t - teach-students/#sthash.jtP493Pv.dpuf)

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Can the Waqf Board be Trusted?...while former directors of the Amanath Cooperative Bank, which included political bigwigs and prominent Muslim citizens of Bangalore go scot free?Mr. Rahman said the Orphanage has initiated action by calling for proper explanation from the earlier Administrator. The question, if a directly administered institution like the 120 year old Muslim Orphanage could be so mismanaged while being under the nose of the Board in Bangalore, how could it be trusted to protect, develop and safeguard the thousands of properties in the vast State?Wakf Minister Faces ChargesMeanwhile, the Karnataka Lokayukta Police have registered an FIR against Wakf Minister Qamarul Islam over the alleged illegal sale of Wakf property in Gulbarga, from where the Minister

hails. A private complaint had been lodged by Kolar-based activist Tabrez Pasha before the lokayukta Special Court in Bangalore in this regard. The Minister is facing the charge of illegally

getting the transfer of land measuring over eight acres by securing a General Power of Attorney and selling the land as residential sites. The Minister is likely to be interrogated by the Lokayukta Police.The land was granted to Khwaja Bande Nawaz Sharief Dargah

by the Wakf Board in 1974 and four years later, Qamarul Islam requested that the land to be granted to him, it said. The land was illegally granted in Qamarul Islam's favour and the minister converted it into a residential layout, selling each plot for a sum ranging from Rs. six lakh to Rs. 20 lakh, Pasha alleged in his complaint. n

Qamarul Islam

Note for the Readers!Readers are requested to make their own inquiry about the products and services advertised in Islamic Voice. They are requested to satisfy themselves of the veracity

of the claims made by the manufacturers and service providers. The journal does not endorse any of goods or services being advertised in the advertisement columns. Editor

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 23HUmanitarian issUes

Page 9

Advocate Waris Pathan (Byculla) and Journalist Imtiyaz Jaleel (Aurangabad - Central) – they were elected on the ticket of All India Majlis-e Ittihadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and Pasha Patel (Ausa, Latur), the lone Muslim face from the BJP.Muslim representation would have been little better this time had the Congress and NCP not broken their alliance before elections. Results show that in Bhiwandi, Shoeb Guddu of Congress was leading at certain stage, but due to the votes taken by Rashid Tahir Momin of the NCP he lost the election.Other losers are Baba Siddiqui, Nawab Malik and Bashir Musa Patel. All three were experienced,

former MLAs and senior leaders of their respective parties. They lost the election because their parties could not transfer the non-Muslim votes in their favour.The emergence of the Hyderabad based All Indian Majlis-e Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) - the party led by the vocal MP Asaduddin Owaisi is clearly a surprise. The AIMIM contested the Maharashtra election for the first time and had fielded 24 candidates. It could bag nearly half a million votes, won two seats, and ended up as runner up in three.The performance is good for a debutant party. However it is yet to be seen how this ‘Muslim’ party is going to help the Muslims in Maharashtra in a highly communally

polarized situation.There is no sign visible anywhere that the Congress can recover from these shocks in near future. The party shows no prospects of better performance in upcoming elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Assam. Writings on the walls are clear. The saffron party is safe in its saddle of power. There are no immediate challengers to its sway.

Ummid.com adds:An influential group of Muslims in the state capital Mumbai, has appealed to the community to welcome the new government and open a dialogue to resolve its issues. "It is wrong for the Muslims to treat BJP as an untouchable or for the BJP to treat Muslims as untouchable. We welcome the new government that will be formed in Maharashtra and also the one led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi", said Feroze Mithiborewala, one of the key members of the group.Feroze was talking to ummid.com in response to the appeal published by the group in Mumbai's leading Urdu dailies. "The Muslims and people from other backward classes have been exploited by the Congress and other secular parties for long. They always used Muslims as sacrificial lamb. It is the Congress which is responsible for sending to jails hundreds of Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism. "The Congress has never been serious in addressing the key demands of the Muslims in Maharashtra or elsewhere in the country. Against this backdrop, it is high time for us to have a dialogue with the BJP government both in the State and New Delhi, and give it a chance to resolve ours issues", he said.Also read edit:' Pointers from Elections'

Excellent English School, 19/25- 4thMain , Bismillahnagar, Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore-560029

Join Hands to Help the School Grow!

The Excellent English School run by social worker Dr. Benazeer Baig in the Bismillah Nagar locality of Bangalore, is in immediate need of a building of its own. Benazeer has been working for the last 20 years in this locality and running a campaign to rescue children from worksites and providing them education and imparting skills to their mothers in order that mothers are able to earn their livelihood and allow their children to study. The school has grown from a small decrepit building to the current status wherein she runs the school in three adjacent buildings, with 666 children cramming the narrow space.The Excellent English School was set up by Benazeer Baig in 1994 in Bismillah Nagar locality of Bangalore. It is a predominantly Muslim locality inhabited by lower middle class Muslims. Present Strength of the School: 666, (60% girls + 40% boys).Another 100 students are being coached under National Child Labour Project of the Central Govt and receive stipend from

the Ministry of Human Resource Development.The school is run by Raza Educational and Social Welfare Society. It has 7 members on the Board. They have an adjacent plot of 25ft x 25ft in which the Society intends to construct another building. Philanthropists and donors should contribute their mite for this.The Excellent English School would not have come to this stage but for the dynamic and visionary leadership of Benazeer Baig. Benazeer started her school for children rescued from worksites in 1994. Most of them were working in hotels, construction sites, workshops and auto garages. She started the school initially for five kids who were rescued. By the year 1998 the strength grew to 100. The Excellent English School has 40 teachers on the payroll. The school imparts education from LKG to 10thstd (i.e., SSLC of the Karnataka State Secondary Education Board. IBM is setting up a Smart Kid Centre where children will learn English, Technology, craft etc.

It requires a space of 600 sq. ft. They have chosen the school for the purpose and have asked them to construct a building for the purpose. This is an appeal to all of you to contribute generously for the construction of the building which is an essential requisite for starting and running the IBM Programme.

You can directly remit your contribution into the Raza Education and Social Welfare Society account. Following are the details:Account holder: Raza Education and Social Welfare SocietySaving Ac. No: 19830100004647FCRA Ac. No. 19830100005236Bank of Baroda, Byrasandra Branch, Bangalore

IFS Code: BARBOBYRASAMicrCode : 560012007It may be noted that the Education Society has an FCRA facility.Address: 19/25, 4th main, Bismillah Nagar, Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore-560029Ph: Landline : 0091-80-26786728, Cell: 99450-24634 (Benazeer Baig),email: raza.educo@gmail.com, www.razaesws.org

Muslims were Misled ...

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 24BRIDE & GROOM

SM Syed Parents seek alliance for daughter 22 years 5’.4” Bsc (Biochemistry),fair, Beautiful, religious, own house, Boy should be B.E. or M.B.A , age 25-28 Years, religious ,own house, working in Bangalore or Gulf. Son B.E. working in IT Company 27 years, 5.10” religious, girl should be any graduate, homely and religious early marriage Email:Gulnazbegum01@gmail.com Mob: 9964309133

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matrimonialWANTED GROOM

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Muslim parents living in Saudi Arabia seek alliance for their daughter 22 yrs. 5’.4” ,very fair,religious.Own house in Bangalore. Boy should be Post Graduate, Be in IT field or MBA,CA preferably from Bangalore. working in gulf countries, age25-29 years religious and handsome. contact email: howdyfolks1@hotmail.com mob. No.966508825872

SM BROTHERS SEEK ALLIANCE FOR THEIR SISTER, 36 YRS.OLD MBA GRADUATE, FAIR, 5’3” HEIGHT, WORKING PROFESSIONAL NEVER MARRIED, WITH VERY GOOD FAMILY & ISLAMIC VALUES FROM DECENT FAMILY SETTLED IN BANGALORE. KINDLY SEND BIO-DATA WITH PHOTO TO EMAIL: EHTHYSHAM@GMAIL.COM MOOSAKAZIMV.R.@GMAIL.COM MOB.9008490720 OR 08939100064

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SM PARENTS INVITE ALLIANCE FOR ONLY DAUGHTER 29 YEARS, B.D.S. PURSUING MASTERS IN COUNSELLING (CORRESPONDENCE), 5.1, FAIR FROM WELL-SETTLED,EDUCATED PROFESSIONALS IN BANGALORE.CONTACT: 080-25529293 OR 8792840531 Email: atiya.zaiba@gmail.com

SM Syed Parents seek alliance from syed/sheik SM family for daughter 25 years 5.3”,Bsc(CBZ),B.E.D,fair beautiful religious own house, Boy should be B.E. or M.B.A. age 28-30 years, religious own house, working in Bangalore or having well settled business. early marriage, Email: meerkha lee lahmed@gmai l . com Mob.9741423310 or 9590398294

SM parents seek alliance for their daughter D.O.B. 7-1984, height 5.4’ fair slim M.B.A.(HR) Groom should be between 33-38 years & well settled in Bangalore, early marriage. Contact

Page 4

Gandhi’s imprint on Poona (City’s former name) is very strong. His guru Tilak lived in Pune. He was kept under house arrest at the Agakhan Palace.Before Independence, Mahatma Gandhi was condemned for his fight against untouchability. This was not acceptable to the Hindu Mahasabha which believed that untouchability was at the core of the Hindu religion. Therefore an abortive attempt was made on Gandhiji at the Vishrambaugwada, but the Mahatma remained unharmed.Dr. Saptarshi felt aggrieved that a film Nathuram Godseis being made and on Gandhi Jayanti in Mumbai a playMee Hote Nathruam Godse (I am Nathuram Godse) was staged. “Gandhians are not opposed to making films or staging plays. They are opposed to the philosophy of violence”, he remarked. Anwar Rajan, Secretary, Maharashtra Gandhi Smarak Nidhi, averred that all undesirable divisions in the society must be fought against. In Kharda, a place near Pune, a Dalit youth was hanged from a tree recently. “All across the country, violence and hatred are being spread. To save us, Gandhi is the only solution. Each one of us have to

take a vow and proactively work for peace in our own homes and streets. To build the nation, ‘no hate’ message has to be spread”, he pleaded.Father Anil Chakranarayana quoted an example from the Bible. A follower asked Jesus, “How many times can I forgive my brother if he makes mistakes?” Christ replied, “70 times.” (It is similar to the Hadees “forgive your servant 70 times” quoted in Islamic Voice, October 2014). He commented that violence has to be fought through non-violence only. This Shanti Yatra must be continued throughout the country so that those who opt for violent means realize that they cannot achieve their goal.The representative from the Government Department of Kushtrog Nirmulan (Leprosy Eradication) urged the audience to help in the cause of removal of leprosy from India, something very dear to Gandhiji.Dr. Saptarshi remarked that India is a unique country which has twelve religions. He said those cities in the US where the whites and black fought against each other, were depleted of the residents. Thus conflict kills the cities. He cautioned that citizens need to be careful and intervene

when communal forces stoke the communal embers. He narrated the example of Gandhiji in resolving conflicts. The British with their huge army could not solve the problem of riots in Noakhali (now in Bangladesh). Gandhi walked alone in the strife-torn streets of that town and it had a salutary effect. The riots stopped. Lord Mountbatten, the then Governor-General of India, remarked that the one-man army of Gandhi was better than the British army comprising six lakh personnel. People should not believe in rumours.Dr. Saptarshi said, Modi pretends that he is not part of spreading the hate campaign. In fact, he is very much part of it. When Gandhiji was murdered by Godse, he was without security. He was shot from the front. What Shaurya (chivalry) is there in killing an old, frail and defenceless person from the front? One can believe Modi when he confesses, “Yes, I killed 2000 Muslims. Sorry!”. He should also say “Sorry! Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi.” “Then only we can believe that Modi is genuine and sincere. There are some misguided youth who want to follow the way of Modi. We want to show them the light. This is our goal.” n

Unique Gandhi Jayanti ...

A Little Help for Fathima Bargis

Outside the lobby of the Kidney Dialysis Unit of the Hazrat Bismillah Shah (HBS) Hospital in Bangalore, Fatima Bargis, is packing her hospital bag to go home with her mother after finishing her four-hour dialysis appointment. Just 26 years old, Fatima was once a bubbly college girl, a Business Management student. She loved her studies. After her degree, she completed a course in Human Resources Management. Fatima is the only child of her parents. After her kidneys failed, she had to be on regular dialysis. With no additional support financially, their home runs on Fatima’s father’s meager pension. Fatima is weak and cannot work in any organization as of now, as she is weak and needs to get her strength back. A bit of contribution and help towards her dialysis treatment will serve as a blessing for her and her parents. Do think about it!Your cheques can be drawn in favour of HBS Dialysis, and sent to HBS Hospital, No 58, Cockburn Road, Shivajinagar, Bangalore-560051.Or, you can deposit your contribution in the hospital bank account:Bank: Axis Bank, Main Branch.Name: HBS DialysisAccount No: 913020048258295IFSC code: Utib0000009Swift Code: Axisinnbb009HBS Kidney Dialysis Unit, HBS Hospital, 58, Cockburn Road, Bangalore:51.Ph:080-25541321.

The Zidni Ilma Charitable Trust, Vadodara distributed scholarships among 342 students from Gujarat on October 26. The Trust set up by human rights activist Prof. Juzar Bandukwala disbursed the scholarships to the tune of Rs. 50 lakh among students pursuing medicine, engineering, dentistry, physiotherapy, diploma and other professional and technical courses. Of these, 132 are girls studying professional courses. The sum was donated by philanthropists and general Muslims.

Scholarship Distributed

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BANGALORE BASED SUNNI

Islamic Voice wishes all it's readers a Happy Hijri New Year 1436

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 25oPen sPace

‘Species Supremacism’: One Form of Discrimination That We Rarely Talk About!

Many of us who consider ourselves to be ‘religious’ people would think nothing about mouthing pious slogans about compassion and loving service, while swatting a mosquito dead or squashing an ‘irritating’ ant into pulp.

By A Staff Writer “Allah does not disdain to set forth the parable even of a gnat, or anything greater than that. As for those who have Faith, they know that it is the truth from their Lord” (Quran)“and god saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (bible)I can’t remember how very many creatures I must have killed in all my almost 50 years. I don’t mean bacteria and amoeba and other such invisible beings that you just can’t help swallowing while drinking a glass of water, or creatures like ants and termites that you sometimes accidentally step on when you walk about. I mean larger beings that one can easily avoid harming if one chooses to. I shudder when I think of the many butterflies and dragonflies I must have maimed as a child, and the number of cockroaches, mosquitoes, worms and spiders that I’ve dispatched to their deaths in later years. Not very long ago, I was complicit in the death of a snake. As far as I was concerned, these ‘creepy’ creatures had absolutely no right to live. They certainly had no business whatsoever to intrude into ‘my’ space, and if they did, they just had it. Even as a committed vegetarian, I had my limits as far as tolerating species that I didn’t like was concerned. The other day, I was discussing with some friends about various forms of supremacism—based on factors such as caste, colour, religion, gender, sexuality, nationality and so on—and it suddenly struck me that at the same time as human beings continue to slaughter each other, driven by conflicting forms of supremacism, there’s one kind of supremacism that seems to unite just about all of us: what can be

called ‘species supremacism’. This is the notion that the human species is morally superior to all other species and that the latter exist simply to serve the former. While the various forms of supremacism that cause human beings to engage in endless

wars among themselves are in our ‘democratic’ age routinely lamented and berated and vigorously sought to be combated, our ‘species supremacism’ is scarcely even noticed. Our pervasive anthropocentrism—reflected in visions of the world that, despite their many differences, are all based on the assumption of human supremacy over, and ownership of, all other beings—is rarely, if ever, seen as a problem or even acknowledged to exist, even as various other forms of supremacism are increasingly going out of fashion. If today we denounce—and rightly so—racial supremacism, national supremacism and religious supremacism, for instance, why is it that we rarely hear of anyone denouncing our intolerable ‘species supremacism’? Barring

some folks in the environmental movement, few of us would think that animals, plants and mountains have any rights at all. Many of us who consider ourselves to be ‘religious’ people (and, therefore, supposedly more ‘moral’ than others) would

think nothing about mouthing pious slogans about compassion and loving service while swatting a mosquito dead, squashing an ‘irritating’ ant into pulp and chomping on a leg of lamb or a fish-finger sandwich. Mosquitoes, ants, lambs and fish somehow do not come under the ambit of what we pride ourselves on as our ‘compassion’ and ‘loving-kindness’. The fact of the matter is that all beings, no matter what their shape, size and species, share one thing in common: the gift of life. That’s something that even the most hardened a n t h r o p o c e n t r i s t wouldn’t be able to dare deny. Awareness of the common life that throbs inside all of us—humans and others—can lead to profound

respect for all beings, as fellow creatures of God. But that’s only if we are willing to let go of our deep-rooted anthropocentrism. This rarely happens, though.

Our ‘species supremacism’ typically so badly disfigures the ways in which we understand our religions that we don’t desist from inventing claims geared to promote our misplaced sense of supremacism and attributing these claims to God. So, for instance, we may insist that God has made all other species simply to serve us and to be made use of by us just as we please. Or, we may claim that only humans have souls and that other species don’t, and that, therefore, we can behave with them however we like. We may even, as in the case of a sect whose followers I once encountered, declare that by killing animals and gorging on their bodies, humans do a great deal of good to them—by supposedly liberating them from the shackles of a lower form of life, thereby enabling them to be reborn in a higher, possibly human, form! And so on. We h umans, as you will readily agree, are remarkably ingenious in being able to rationalize even our most horrific barbarisms.

If you seriously ponder on the amazing diversity and stunning beauty of the non-human world, you can’t resist appreciating the fact that since all forms of life have been created by God, they all must serve some purpose in His grand scheme of things—or else He wouldn’t have created them in the first place. They certainly aren’t useless and dispensable, as many of us would like to think simply because we would hate to rid ourselves of our misplaced sense of ‘species supremacism’. Even though we may not be able to fathom it, God must definitely have a definite purpose in bringing into being every single mosquito, termite and tadpole that exists—or else why would He bother to make them? The more you reflect on all this and the deeper it sinks in, the less likely it is that you’ll instinctively reach out to swat dead the next mosquito that comes zooming into your ear or to unthinkingly squash an ant that accidentally nibbles your toe. n

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 26GloBal aFFairs

Scourge of Hidden HungerInadequacy of Nutrition for nearly a third of the global people is

affecting their productivity

A staggering two billion people get so little essential vitamins and minerals from the foods they eat that they remain undernourished, according to the 2014 Global Hunger Index (GHI), prepared at intervals of every two year by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide.

The inadequacy of nutrition is termed as ‘Hidden Hunger’. This weakens the immune system, stunts physical and intellectual growth, and is potentially devastating.Global Hunger Index is measured by 1-Proportion of the population that is undernourished, 2-Prevalence of Underweight in Children who are less than five, and 3-Proportion of children dying before the age of five years.

What is Hunger?

Hunger is usually understood to refer to the distress associated with lack of food. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) defines food deprivation or under-nourishment, as the

consumption of fewer than 1,800 kilocalories of

a day—the minimum that most people require everyday to live a healthy and productive life.

Poor nutrition causes losses to productivity and reduced economic growth.· Hidden hunger afflicts two

billion people globally, or one in every three persons. Particularly its affect on newborns (in 1,000 days from birth) could be devastating

and can affect cognitive skills.

· Though the scale of hunger is declining, still 805 million people across the globe

continue to go hungry everyday in 2014, a year ahead of 2015, the year for achieving the Millennium

Development Goals (MDG). They do not have enough calories to eat.· Since 1990, the hunger has come down by 39% in developing countries.

· Despite improvement, hunger prevails in sub-Saharan African countries and South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal etc).

· Levels of hunger are either ‘extremely alarming’ or ‘alarming’ in 16 countries. Burundi and Eritrea, both in

Africa, come under ‘extremely alarming’ category.

· From 1990 Global Hunger Index (GHI) to 2014, twenty six countries reduced their scores by 50%. These include Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chad, Ghana, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda,

Thailand and Vietnam which saw the biggest improvement in the score since 1990.

· India has improved its position considerably. It has moved to 120th place in 2014 among the 128 countries for which data on underweight children was gathered. In 2009, it stood on 126th position. India now ranks 55th on GHI among 78 countries, ahead of Pakistan and Bangladesh (both on 57th ) but trails behind Nepal

which stands on 44th place.· Burundi, Comoros and

Eritrea have the highest proportion of undernourished people i.e., more than 60% of the population.

· Bangladesh, Niger, Timor-Leste and Yemen have the highest prevalence of underweight in children under five, amounting to more than 35% in each of these countries.

· Angloa, Chad and Sierra Leone have the highest under-five mortality rate ie., ranging between 15 and 18%.

· Iraq has suffered a downslide on the GHI since 1990 due to deteriorating accessibility and quality of services for decades and years of instability, large number of internally displaced people.

· Nearly 18 million babies suffer from brain damage due to iodine deficiency every year.

· Severe anemia leads to death of 50,000 women during childbirth every year.

(Source: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ghi14.pdf)

What is Hunger?Hunger is usually understood to refer to the distress associated with lack of food. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) defines food deprivation or under-nourishment, as the consumption of fewer than 1,800 kilocalories of a day—the minimum that most people require everyday to live a healthy and productive life.

innovations & inventions

Making Education Musical Taslima Sheikh, a government school teacher is bringing melodies to the

classrooms to make education more interesting and fun. By Shreya Pareek

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires,” said William Arthur Ward, the renowned writer. This is the story of one such great teacher who is going the extra mile to make sure that her students get more interested in education – and the world of poems.Taslima Sheikh, a primary school teacher in Diu, is giving a musical touch to the poems that her students have to learn, thus making them more enjoyable. “When I started teaching here, I realized that students were facing problems in learning poems. So I thought of coming up with an idea that could make learning poems easier and more fun,” Sheikh says.As per studies conducted by

Stanford, it has been shown that people with a sense of music can easily detect small differences in word syllables as compared to people with a non-musical background. Also some knowledge of music helps the brain to distinguish very minute differences between rapidly changing sounds. This is also the premise behind Taslima’s idea. Sheikh is using the tools of music and multimedia to make her students understand poems easily and in a fun way. She uses various ragas and sets the poems to those tunes to improve the sense of music among students and also to help them enjoy the music. She makes an effort to first choose the ragas and then adapts them to the various poems. Not just this, she

also incorporates actions with the poems to make the classes more entertaining.What is even more amazing to see is the dedication of a teacher

who herself takes the initiative of recording the videos and uploading them online for others to watch and learn from! In a place where technology and internet are still not easily accessible, Sheikh has shown immense initiative and

resourcefulness.She first converts the poems of English, Hindi, Gujarati and Sanskrit into songs and sets them to the tunes of ragas. Then she demonstrates to the students how to sing these poems in the ragas and the students follow her instructions. Sheikh later takes a video recording of these

classes and uploads the videos on Youtube to share the innovative concept with people across the country.“The idea is to use multimedia elements and expand the impact by reaching out to other teachers and classrooms. I have had so far over 9,500 views on my Youtube channel and a lot of students and teachers from across the country have commented on how useful they find it. I have even shared these poem-songs to teachers in other schools in the district through pen drive and bluetooth when I met them at events,” she says.Currently focusing on students of 6th, 7th and 8th standard, Sheikh wants to take this initiative to other age groups as well. The students gain confidence and don’t hesitate in singing the poems once they are part of these interesting classes.Getting recognition from IIM

Ahmedabad’s Teachers as Transformers platform, was a big boost for Taslima as she was trying to teach students in an innovative way which was not done by many teachers before.“I also got a chance to meet prime minister, Narendra Modi and received appreciation from him. It was a great moment for me as I was one of the 34 teachers who were selected from entire state of Gujarat,” Sheikh says.The initial challenge was to get students to sing the songs. Children would take time in getting a hang of the tunes and would feel shy to sing in class. But gradually, after regular practice, Sheikh’s students now are getting into the rhythm.The impact is clearly visible as the students who are unable to read or write in English can fluently sing English poems.Sheikh’s innovative teaching idea

Page 23

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 27Cleaning the Mess in India

national aFFairs

Sanitation and garbage disposal are two major areas that lend a bad name to India and cause ill-health besides making the urbanscape squalid. The issue is gathering a lot of focus these days. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about the issue from the ramparts of the Lal Qila on August 15 this year on the eve of Independence Day. The mess around our cities not only causes health and hygiene issues, but also reduces the visual appeal for prospective tourists. Besides it brings down the value as a destination for investment, and for those looking at Indian universities and hospitals. Some of the facts and figures can illustrate the problems.

Solid WasteMajor Indian cities generates • 1,27,486 metric tons of garbage or what is called Municipal solid waste (MSW) everyday. Thirteen of the top 20 dirtiest • cities across the globe are in India, according to WHO statistics.

Only 12 of the 497 cities with • one-lakh plus population have anything like adequate infrastructure to deal with garbage and human and organic waste. Nearly 20,000 people die • every year due to diseases spread by rodents and stray dogs feeding off garbage dumps.Every city living Indian • generates half a kilogram of waste every day. On festival days, this quantity doubles.But on an average day, 40% • of the garbage remains from being collected by the safai karamchari (or scavengers). Thus garbage heaps keep on growing on sidewalks, transformer cages and unoccupied lands.

Waste generated in some big cities

Chennai: 6404 mtBangalore: 5,000 mtCalcutta 12,060 mtMumbai: 11600 mt.Ahmedabad: 4,200 mt.

(Pirana landfill has 1.96 lakh mt. of accumulated garbage.

Our dismissiveness about the garbage will not work. One should not thumbnose at the suggestion of the topic.

Sanitation597 million people defecate • in the open.Two out of every three rural • households have no access to toilets. Less than 12% homes have latrines connected to a piped sewer system.The 2011 Census says • there are 53.1% households without a toilet in India. (Five north Indian states have the worst record. The proportion of households without a latrine in UP is 64%, Madhya Pradesh 71.2%, West Bengal 41.2%, Bihar 76.9%, and Andhra Pradesh 50.%.)India fares poorly in • comparison to its neighbours with Bangladesh recording only 3% of its households without latrines, China 1%

and Pakistan 23%. It is claimed that since 2001, • toilets have been built in 97 million households.The Ministry for Drinking • Water and Sanitation says $3 billion have been spent on constructing toilets across the country since 1986. The Indian Government is now gearing up to spend an additional $31 billion (i.e., Rs. 1.96 lakh crore on building another 100 million toilets in rural areas in rural areas.A survey by SQUAT in five • north Indian states, says 40% of households with a newly built toilet, a member of the family was still defecating in the open. (Cultural conditioning and traditions are said to be the reason in people avoiding use of toilets within their houses.). Less than half of people who own a government latrine use it regularly. Half of people who defecate in the open say that they do so because it is

pleasurable, comfortable and convenient. India plans construction • of 11.11 toilets in five years tenure of the Prime Minister.A swachch Bharath Mission • has been planned to ensure hygiene, waste management and sanitation across the country.

Major National Initiatives to Clean up India in the past Oct. 2, 1969: Mahatma Gandhi Birth Centenary Day: to end manual scavengingJan. 14, 1985: Launched by then PM Rajeev Gandhi, Ganga Action Plan1986: Launched during the prime ministership of Rajeev Gandhi; Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan(It was previously called Total Sanitation Campaign): Objective : to eliminate defecation in open by 2017.(Source: Data gathered from the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, http://squatreport.in/ etc. )

Dial Kashmir

innovations & inventions

Young Kashmiri girl makes an app to bring Kashmir on the fingertips

By Sana Altaf

One of the realities of Kashmir today is the movement of thousands of Kashmiri youth to other parts of the country in order to seek better career opportunities for themselves, especially in the field of information technology. One young woman, Mehvish Mushtaq, 23, is determined to buck this trend. Instead, the one ambition she nurses is to create opportunities for young people at home, so that they could win laurels for themselves and for Kashmir.But who is Mehvish? She happens to be the first Kashmiri woman to develop an android application that goes by the name ‘Dial Kashmir’. A Srinagar girl, Mehvish did not receive an education in a fancy elite college or university. After completing her schooling from Presentation Convent School, she sat for the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) examination. Disappointment followed. Having failing to clear the AIEEE, Mehvish joined the SSM College of Engineering and Technology at Pattan, in Baramulla district of north Kashmir.

“I was always interested in technology and fortunately my family supported me in my decision to go into this field. In fact, no one in the family has ever forced me to do anything,” says Mehvish, whose father has served as officer with the Indian Foreign Service. Her mother is a homemaker while her brother is pursuing his education in Delhi.Mehvish completed her three-year Bachelor’s course in 2012 and was wondering on what to do next when life took an unexpected turn. She puts it this way, “I was generally going through my Facebook profile, when an advertisement popped out and caught my attention. It seemed interesting so I clicked on it.”That was how Mehvish joined an online course for developing applications. Always a person who wanted to get deeper into subjects that interested her, she found herself immersed in the world of application development. “The course itself was not long – it was completed in one month. But during that course, we were given a project to develop an

application,” Mehvish explains.The idea of ‘Dial Kashmir’ struck her at that juncture. Kashmir had no yellow pages or dedicated websites with reliable information unlike other regions of India. This

meant that people faced a lot of problems trying to track down contact numbers of different departments and services. Mehvish, knowing well that there were many users of android mobile phones in the Valley, felt that if she came up with the right app she could be addressing an urgent need.After two weeks of hard work, without any assistance or help, ‘Dial Kashmir’ became a reality for Mehvish. It provides users

detailed information such as addresses, phone numbers and email ids of various essential services and relevant government departments in Kashmir. It is a one-stop source for information

on healthcare, education, transport, the police and so many other sectors and meant, that no one now needs to spend time and tedious effort surfing through internet pages, official websites and directories. Her application has witnessed an average rating of 4.7 out of 5, with a thousand plus downloads on Google Play.

It disturbs Mehvish to note the absence of proper educational and career opportunities for info-tech aspirants, which in turn forces thousands of young people to leave home every year. “The absence of relevant colleges and universities is a big issue in Kashmir. Our youth are not able to develop their potential here,” she says.Mehvish has experienced for herself the innumerable hurdles that prevent Kashmir’s dynamic

young innovators from realising their potential. But she would like them not to lose hope and keep dreaming big. Mehvish’s particular dream is to set up her own software company – which could provide employment opportunities for many and contribute to the world of info-tech. Says she, “There is no point in just complaining that there are no opportunities. While that is certainly the case, I believe we have to find ways to create opportunities – not just wait endlessly for the government to act. It’s time we stood up and got noticed.”Mehvish is working to add more contacts to the application and upgrade it further. She is also contemplating on developing a dictionary for the Kashmiri language. Says the young woman firmly, “I want to contribute to my motherland by staying right here. I do not want to move out of Kashmir, either to study or to work.”Source: (Written by Sana Altaf for Women’s Feature Service and republished in //www.thebetterindia.com in arrangement with WFS).

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ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 28liFe & relationsHiPs Getting the Key to Success in Goa

The Discover Yourself Workshop was held in Tonse, Udupi and in Margao, in October 2014. It was

organised by the Board of Islamic Studies, Goa.

Some of the participants share their experiences after the Workshop.

8 It helped me to change myself and got all the answers to my questions.8 I am able to distinguish ‘Huq’ and ‘Batil’ in me and in life.8 After the workshop, many changes has come in my life. I have stopped

criticizing others and learning to control my anger.8 I used to judge and blame others, but now I understood the way of living in the path of Allah and

Sunnah.8 It helped me to understand and how to live in reality.8 Earlier, I was living in my own world, now I am able to differentiate between ‘ME’ and

‘Myself’.8 It was a great experience and was totally beneficial to understand Islam and its way of life.8 This workshop is a gift for those who really want to change themselves as Allah wishes.8 The workshop practically removed negativity from within me and brought in positivity.8 The workshop is a sadaqa-e-jariyah for you and Allah’s rehmat (blessings) for us.8 It has helped me to see my blind spots and made me realise how wrongly I perceived my life and

my actions.8 It transforms one’s life and removes all the dirt and unwanted things from the mind and heart and

it helps us to connect to Allah.8 You were amazing! Just like soap washes away dirt, you washed away the dirt of minds.8 It helped me to introspect about myself, to take control of my ego and lead a peaceful life.8 I am fortunate- Alhamdulillah, Allah granted me with this beautiful opportunity.8 The space provided would not be sufficient for me to write about the numerous benefits I got from

this workshop. But in short, it has changed the way I look at things and the way I respond to it.8 Truly, a life changing experience, I feel sorry for my mom, dad and sister who could not attend

this workshop.8 It helped me to overcome anger and see the world from a new context.8 The workshop helped me to stop being angry, selfish and being an egoist person.8 The workshop changes you to be a real human being.8 I have discovered myself Alhamdulillah! This workshop is a key for success in my life.8 The workshop helped me to differentiate between Huq and Batil.8 The workshop was excellent, interesting, enjoyable and very funny.8 I was short tempered before, but now Alhamdulillah, I have started loving

my children and family.8 I experienced the reality of life.8 It was worth attending, I felt peace within myself.

It was worth attending, I felt peace within myself.AMIRA: Life was full of confusion, panics, too many opinions and questions. I used to do all outward ibadah, preach Islam to others, but had never imagined the inner realities of life. All the techniques taught are practical and need to be practised. I would have been in my own world if I would not have attended this workshop.SABINA: Before the workshop, my life was full of assumptions, opinions, falsehood, tensions, confusions and restlessness. Alhamdulillah, I have found lot of difference in me and my parents and relatives are very happy to see the change in me. I have experienced the fact that if we change, the world around us too changes. My life changed after coming here. I am able to

sleep now peacefully after many months. I appreciate your spirit to conduct the workshops to make Muslims realize humanity and Islam as a way of life.AFROZ: I had a problem with my mother-in-law for the last three years. She had insulted me in front of the whole family. From that day I was not at peace. Even my relationship with my husband got bad. I was always angry, blaming others. I thought I was right. My husband and my parents always tried to make me calm, gave good advice and told me to forget everything. But I could not do it. At last my husband also gave up. And my relation was becoming worst day by day. I was not at peace at all. But after attending the second day of the workshop, everything changed, my life and my thoughts changed. I went to

my husband and cried a lot for what I did and I forgave all of them. I felt relaxed and calm. I have thrown all the baggage I was carrying. My husband was very happy and said you are a courageous lady. It was the best gift he gave me to attend this workshop, keeping the kids with him and taking care of them. Alhamdulillah and Jazakallah khair.FARIDA: I was a very negative and insecure person. Always worried about my future and regretting about my past actions. I use to always ask Allah and myself –‘Aisa kyon hota hai’ why me?. Now I learnt to not question, I realised that the past is gone and I have to live in the present, the present is a gift which I have to enjoy. I am responsible for my actions and my happiness.

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE320 - WORKSHOP IN BAHRAIN

Dates: 31, 01 & 02 NOVEMBER 2014 Organized By: Discover Islam, Contact: Syed ThahirCell: +973 39821748, Email: syedbahrain@gmail.com

321- WORKSHOP IN DUBAI Dates: 06, 07 & 08 NOVEMBER 2014

contact Mr Hamid : 0503387289/0561153948 EMAIL:mhamid1234@yahoo.com

322 - WORKSHOP IN KARIMNAGARDates: 14,15 & 16 NOVEMBER 2014

Timings: 9.00 am to 6.00 pm , Organised by: MESWAK( Muslim Educational Social Welfare Association)

Karimnagar,Telangana State. Contact : Dr.Syed Imam Showkath Ali +91-9885247333 / +91-8125247333, E mail : meswak2007@gmail.com

323 - WORKSHOP IN CALICUT Dates: 21,22 & 23 NOVEMBER 2014

Timings: 9.00 am to 6.00 pm (Breaks for Tea, & Salah)CONTACT: Prof. (Dr.) A. A. M. KUNHIPRINCIPAL & DIRECTOR, RESEARCH

organised by: SAFI INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDY (SIAS)Rasiya Nagar, Vazhayoor East P.O.Malappuram Dist. -673633,

Kerala, India, Ph: +91 9995250667, Email:aamkunhi@gmail.com

324 - WORKSHOP IN CHENNAI Dates: 2 8 ,2 9 & 30 NOVEMBER 2014

Timings: 9.00 am to 6.00 pm, (Breaks for Tea, & Salah)CONTACT: Bushra Amanullah,Principal

Email: crescentngm76@gmail.com

32 5 - WORKSHOP IN MUMBAI Dates: 05, 06 & 07 December 2014

Timings: 9.00 am to 6.00 pm, (Breaks for Tea, & Salah)CONTACT: Ashraf Mohamedy

Cell No: 9821232224, Email: ashraf.mohamedy@gmail.com

DYS- TRAINERS TRAINING WORKSHOPDATES: 24 TO 30 December 2014

One week residential workshop. ELIGIBILITY: Only for those who have done one or more of the Discover

Yourself workshops in the recent years.VENUE: WRAC,(Wild Retreat Activity Center)

Benergatta, Bangalore, India. Food & Accommodation: Approx Rs 12,000/-

Registration: Limited seats. First cum First basis.APPLICATION: To register, the participant must send the complete

resume, profession, photo, etc and a brief write up why I want to take this course . Email to dysworkshop@gmail.com.

COURSE FEE: free www.discoveryourself.in

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 29advertisement

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 30CHILDREN'S CORNER

The Rock Garden of Chandigarh

Dinky! Don’t!By A Staff Writer ‘They should have named me “Dinky-Don’t-Don’t-Don’t!” instead,’ cried Dinky to himself. ‘Whenever they open their mouths, it’s “Dinky, don’t do that!” or “Dinky, don’t you dare do this!”’ Dinky had recently turned 18, an age when young people should be able to decide many things for themselves. But unlike his friends, Dinky just wasn’t allowed a mind of his own. His parents were always at him for something or the other. ‘Don’t wear red, that’s a womanly colour!’ his father would growl. ‘Don’t walk so slowly. Real men walk fast!’ ‘Don’t waste electricity! I have to pay for it, not you!’ ‘Don’t use the phone without my permission. I have to pay for it, and MY money doesn’t grow on trees!’ ‘Don’t waste your time idling in bed! You should be up and about, doing something all day! You don’t want to be a failure in life, do you?’ ‘Don’t back-answer me!’ Don’t forget that this

is MY house!’ ‘Don’t you dare give your family a bad name!’ ‘Don’t!’ ‘Don’t!’ ‘Don’t!’, on and on Dinky’s father would go!Dinky’s mother was no different. ‘Don’t you have any manners? Say good morning to your parents!’ she

would begin the day. ‘Don’t you know how to smile?’ she would snarl. ‘Don’t eat so slowly, you’ll miss the school bus!’ she would scold him on the breakfast table. If Dinky ate a little hurriedly, as

she insisted he should, she would snap, ‘Don’t eat so fast! Are you catching a train or what?’ ‘Don’t drink cold water, or you’ll fall sick,’ she would instruct.‘Don’t throw your clothes on your bed!’ Dinky’s mother would

screech, barging into his room when he got back from school. It was a daily routine. ‘Am I your servant that I have to clear up your mess? If ever Dinky tried to explain that he didn’t quite agree with his parents on every little thing, all he got back, even before he could open his mouth, was a barrage of don’ts! ‘Don’t act smart!’ ‘Don’t think you are very clever!’ Don’t answer back!’ ‘Don’t you have any respect for us?’ ‘Don’t!’ ‘Don’t!’ ‘Don’t!’ How often it was that that word would echo in little Dinky’s head, driving him dizzy till he felt that his head was about to burst! Sometimes, when things got really unbearable, he would rush to the bathroom, lock the door and cry, all by himself. But even that didn’t stop the don’ts! ‘And if Dinky tried to explain that all he wanted was to be able to decide little things for

himself—like whether or not to accompany his parents to a social function or what to do with his pocket money or which game to play and with whom—his father would burst out, ‘Don’t you dare ask questions! Just do as you are told!’ It was thus hardly surprising that Dinky grew up frightened of doing almost anything at all on his own! No matter what he did or said, he was bound to be shouted down by his parents.Sometimes, when things get really difficult for people and they almost give up all hope, God decides to intervene in their lives and bail them out. And that’s what happened with Dinky one day. At school that day, Dinky spotted a colourful poster on the students’ notice-board. It was an announcement for a four-year scholarship to help in a research project on pandas in southern China. All expenses would be covered.You won’t believe how excited Dinky was as he went through the poster! He imagined himself travelling around China, through paddy fields and forested hills, spending nights in curiously-shaped pagodas and eating noodles in wooden bowls with chop-sticks! He saw himself cuddling up with a baby panda, singing it a lullaby and drifting off to sleep with the furry little thing in his arms! How wonderful it all seemed! How Dinky wished he would be selected for the programme!Over dinner that evening, Dinky told his parents about the scholarship. He was just about to add that he wanted to apply for it when his father barked, ‘Don’t think I don’t know what’s playing on your mind! Don’t think you

can go to China and play around with pandas! You have to become a doctor! We’ve been doctors in this family for as long as anyone remembers, and that’s what you are going to be as well!’ Dinky knew better than to start a squabble on the dining table. Sensibly, he kept quiet, but, unknown to his parents, he applied for the scholarship. Now, Dinky was an intelligent child and was good at his studies—that was nothing less than a miracle, given all the many fears that haunted him. The essay that he submitted to the scholarship authorities—it was on animal rights—was so impressive, as were his grades at school and the online interview that he gave on Skype, that he topped the list of applicants for the scholarship!You won’t believe how excited Dinky was when, some days later, he received an email message informing him that he had been selected for the scholarship, along with an e-ticket to Beijing! And in a few months, he found himself trekking through the bamboo forests of southern China, along with a team of other boys and girls, making a census of pandas in the wild! He’s still there—having the time of his life, at last being able to be himself and to do what he knows is best for him, without the word ‘Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!’ buzzing around in his head!And as for Dinky’s parents, now that Dinky is in faraway China and they have no one else to try to control and terrorise into obeying them, but each other, they are beginning to realise what their son must have felt being curbed at every step and living in fear! They are, or so one hopes, beginning to mend their ways. n

Tale Time

Everyone in Chandigarh knows Nek Chand and his Rock Garden. If you are visiting Chandigarh, a city planned by famous French architect Le Corbusier, you must visit this garden.Nek Chand came as a refugee from Pakistan to Indian side of Punjab. He got a job in the Highways Department. During

his many forays to the bed of Ghaggar River, he would pick a lot of stones that bore resemblance with people, birds, animals and other things. He began collecting them at a site in the foothills of Shivalik ranges in Chandigarh. It was a 27,000 square feet site. Chandigarh was then rising from the dust and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was taking special interest in its planning.The site Nek Chand chose was away from public eye. Nek Chand would spend four hours in the evening to fashion these stones into various forms,

clearing the site of the rubble and creating a garden. He had fenced off the entire site with rusty barrels of tar. He would pick up refuse, discarded item from railway yards, electricity office, hotels and hospitals. Anything and everything would get transformed into some piece of art at his hands. He would fix it

somewhere in the open air studio that the site had become. He kept on working secretly till 1973 when the workers of the Public Work Department stumbled upon the secret garden. His garden suddenly came to catch the public

eye.The people were bemused with the bewitching sight. They supported him financially and whatever they can. In 1976, he was released from his official job and appointed the “Creator-Director” of the garden which was named “Rock Garden”.Today the Rock Garden has several fountains, amphitheatres, waterfalls, cascades, parks studded with pleasing sculptures, and delightful buildings. Nek Chand still visits the park every day and guides the workers and sculptors infusing his imagination.

ISLAMIC VOICE, November 2014 31CHILDREN'S CORNER

Journalism and Mass MediaEnhance Your Word Power

Let us take up terms related to journalism and mass media to understand various concepts and functions pertaining to this field.

Journalism: The profession of writing for newspapers and journals is called Journalism. But this belongs to the age when journals and newspapers were the main source of news and information. Today journalism has been replaced by Mass Media which include the radio, television, internet, etc.

Reporter: One who reports news and events in the newspaper. He is a person who covers the events and comes to the newspaper office to write it.

Correspondent: A journalist who is based in places outside the centre of publication of the newspaper and he mainly uses mediums like (previously post, telex) email to send news.

Sub-editor: One who puts the reporter’s write-ups in a proper shape, makes it grammatically right, legally safe, fixes a headline, makes the text highly readable.

Editor: The chief of the news section of a newspaper who runs the paper as per a policy, monitors the quality of the content and is the main persons who decides the

content. He is also the persons who is legally responsible for all that goes into a newspaper.

Byline : The name of the writer of an article in a newspaper.

Masthead: The name of a newspaper shown in the top of the first page.

Credit line: A line, generally at the end of the news or article which indicates the source of the information.

Caption: A line below or in the side of the photograph explaining the contents of a photograph.

Dateline: A line that shows the date of publication of the information.

Deadline: The hour by which something for publishing is accepted by a newspaper or journal.

Blurb: Gist of the contents highlighted in a box

What is a QR Code?You have so far been hearing about Bar Codes which are nowadays found on almost all manufactured products. Bar codes store information about the item in vertical bars. A scanner at the modern shops can read those bars.But now QR codes can be seen on billboards as well as in newspaper advertisements. A QR code can be read by an imaging device such as camera or smartphone. QR code

stores information in black square dots on a square grid with white

background. These dots are arranged both horizontally as well as vertically. It was invented by Denso Wave in 1994 for automotive industry in Japan to track a particular vehicle while being assembled. But it is now used widely outside this particular industry. Merely by pointing a

smartphone towards a QR Code on a billboard, a passeby in a car on a highway can access the product’s website and extract information.

First Postage StampWhile Post has been in existence in some form since time immemorial, the postage stamps were introduced in 1840. Earlier to this, the receiver of the letter would pay the charges for delivery of the letter. This ensured that the postman would deliver the mail honestly. Later the sender started paying the charges and got a receipt for that. But managing so many receipts became a problem.

Lord Rowland Hill proposed to the British government to paste the receipt on the letter in the form of a stamp. Queen Victoria, then ruler of Great Britain agreed to this. The first

postage stamp that were printed then carried her picture.

Body LanguageNowadays we hear a lot about body language. We communicate a lot of things through actions of our body or motion of hands and fingers. You know how to tell someone to keep silent i.e., by keeping the index finger on the lips. When one pouts the lips, that means he is upset or disapproves some act. Thumbs up sign is for approval while thumbs down is unhappiness. When a cat is angry, it humps it

back and its skin ruffles up so that it appears bigger. Gestures like hailing

a cab are very common. When you want to say that something is superb, you make a circle by linking your thumb with the index finger. Shrugging shoulders is a very common gesture done by raising of shoulders. It means one does not care for something or does not know the answer.

Body language is an essential part of speech. This allows easier communication.

within the story or article.

Editorial: An article expressing the opinion of the editor.

Columnist: A writer or journalist who regularly writes pieces in a newspaper.

Cartoonist: A person who draws pictures to telling a funny story in a newspaper.

Cartographer: A person who draws maps for a news story. It may related to a war zone, or a showing a bus route or even about access to a stadium or auditorium.

Morgue: A newspaper’s section where stock information is available about any person, even or phenomenon which can be used for reference in future news story.