Jamiat-ul-Ulema knows it cannot push women back into burqas

The War within Islam

10 Nov 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

Jamiat-ul-Ulema knows it cannot push women back into burqas

Cover up operation It is natural for many to feel that the latest pronouncements from Deoband will push women further inside their dark holes. It will take the community back five centuries. But rather than arousing such fears, the panicky ranting of maulanas gives me hope. It would appear that they have heard the news. Muslim women are on the move. They are revolting even in the tiniest of towns. Making use of the Islamic provision of choice given to them in the Koran, an increasing number of Muslim girls are refusing to marry boys of their parents’ choice. They are even contemplating and a few succeeding, with sometimes fatal consequences, in eloping with boys of their choice. In many cases parents and the society at large has to accept their choices. In some cases the girls are even contemplating elopement with boys of other faiths. … I asked one girl who was planning to elope with a Hindu boy, if she was aware that, being a Hindu her friend was ahl-e-Kitab, and she could marry him even under the provisions of Islamic Sharia. This girl of a UP town of just 2 lakh was knowledgeable enough to tell me that was not the case. Only Muslim boys can marry ahl-e-Kitab girls under the Islamic provision. I told her that this provision had been made at a time when girls couldn’t stand on their own; but now you are an earning professional and will be able to fight for your right to follow the religion of your choice, so how would that Islamic provision apply to you today. She said she had never heard such "rational nonsense" and that the only way out for her was to elope and hope that she or her husband doesn’t get killed by their relatives. … The ulema are clearly rattled. This couldn’t be happening. But it is. – Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamUrduSection_1.aspx?ArticleID=2077 Cover up operation By Sultan Shahin November 9, 2009 The Jamiat-ul-Ulema’s regressive agenda has shocked the nation. Of late the Jamiat had acquired a rather positive image owing to its sustained anti-terrorism campaign, even though it did not go far enough and hence was not very effective. But in its recent Deoband convention organised by the Maulana Mahmood Madani faction, it has practically served notice on Muslims, particularly women, to stay within the boundaries set by 8th century ulema who had endorsed the so-called ahadees (sayings of Prophet Mohammad) concocted two to three centuries after the demise of the prophet. These ahadees contravene the progressive, even feminist teachings of the Koran specifically to degrade and humiliate women and uphold the pre-Islamic practices. The Jamiat has asked Muslim men to ensure "sisters, wives and mothers wear burqa", and do not bring "disrepute to the community". Endorsing Jamiat’s archaic thinking, a number of ulema told the large Muslim gathering that a woman’s status in society should be "secondary and subdued". They should abstain from watching cinema or television or going to co-ed schools; restrictive Sharia practices would apply to them after the age of 10. The Jamiat also reiterated its opposition to the government’s efforts to provide millions of bonded madrasa students an option to join the mainstream of society by acquiring knowledge and skills other than that of becoming a muezzin or an Imam of a mosque. It also repeated, completely unnecessarily, its earlier fatwa against Muslims singing Vande Mataram, half a century after the issue was settled. Clearly Jamiat’s burqa is slipping and the veneer of broadmindedness is wearing off. Composite nationalism calls for adjustment on the part of all communities. Unity in diversity and not uniformity of the Sangh Parivar world-view is definitely the idea best suited for India. But any one community cannot insist on maintaining a completely separate identity, emphasise the character of a medieval community in its dress code, education, treatment of women and children, contempt for other religions, virulent sectarianism, and politics of victimhood. Jamiat cannot declare majority of Muslims apostate for going to shrines of Sufi saints revered by people of all faiths and at the same time present itself as part of the national mainstream. It is natural for many to feel that the latest pronouncements from Deoband will push women further inside their dark holes. It will take the community back five centuries. But rather than arousing such fears, the panicky ranting of maulanas gives me hope. It would appear that they have heard the news. Muslim women are on the move. They are revolting even in the tiniest of towns. Making use of the Islamic provision of choice given to them in the Koran, an increasing number of Muslim girls are refusing to marry boys of their parents’ choice. They are even contemplating and a few succeeding, with sometimes fatal consequences, in eloping with boys of their choice. In many cases parents and the society at large has to accept their choices. In some cases the girls are even contemplating elopement with boys of other faiths. Normally this should have been no big deal. On the advice of the ulema in his time, Mohammad bin Qasim had treated Hindus as Ahl-e-Kitab (People of the Book, that is, followers of one of the 1,24,000 prophets who came prior to Prophet Mohammad, but later Indian ulema have invented for them a new and post-Islamic category of "semi-ahl-e-kitab", whatever that means. Muslims are asked to have close social interaction including marital ties with Ahl-e-Kitab. I asked one girl who was planning to elope with a Hindu boy, if she was aware that, being a Hindu her friend was ahl-e-Kitab, and she could marry him even under the provisions of Islamic Sharia. This girl of a UP town of just 2 lakh was knowledgeable enough to tell me that was not the case. Only Muslim boys can marry ahl-e-Kitab girls under the Islamic provision. I told her that this provision had been made at a time when girls couldn’t stand on their own; but now you are an earning professional and will be able to fight for your right to follow the religion of your choice, so how would that Islamic provision apply to you today. She said she had never heard such "rational nonsense" and that the only way out for her was to elope and hope that she or her husband doesn’t get killed by their relatives. In her view even a loving invitation for reception to celebrate their marriage could prove fatal, so she won’t fall for it. The ulema are clearly rattled. This couldn’t be happening. But it is. The writer is editor, NewAgeIslam.com Source: DNA, Mumbai URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamUrduSection_1.aspx?ArticleID=2077

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Asadullah Syed

Iran warning over Saudi attack on Yemeni Shia radicals

Deoband resolution on ‘Vande Mataram’ pointless

The War within Islam

10 Nov 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

Deoband resolution on ‘Vande Mataram’ pointless

Over 50 Muslim-majority countries have over the last fifty years managed to modernise and alter personal laws in tune with changing societal norms. Egypt has announced 12 per cent reservation for women in Parliament, Saudi Arabia is opening coeducation universities for science and technology, many Islamic countries have banned the “triple talaq” at one go and women are being educated — and incentivised to work in all sectors. Every madrasa or school outside the subcontinent follows a government-approved curriculum which includes modern life sciences. All these reforms have come from within the religious systems, as they have a larger chance of success. But our religious clergy is reluctant to move on such contemporary issues. This politics of isolation is ill-fated in a multi-plural democracy like India. In the last sixty years the community has consistently slipped to the lowest rung of the knowledge and economic ladder, caught in a vicious trap the helps nobody but self-serving political and religious leaderships. A growing revulsion against such leadership is beginning to be apparent — especially in the present generation of young, educated Muslims whose sole aim is to be competitive and employed gainfully. — Aijaz Ilmi URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamIslamicWorldNews_1.aspx?ArticleID=2074 Fatwa for nobody Aijaz Ilmi Nov 10, 2009 The pointlessness of the Deoband resolution on ‘Vande Mataram’ Every Madrasa outside the subcontinent follows a government-approved curriculum which includes modern life sciences. But our religious clergy is reluctant. The Supreme Court had managed to put a firm lid on the Vande Mataram issue, but, true to form, the religious clergy cannot desist from their desire to keep the communal cauldron boiling. When there is no compulsion, what is the need for any resolution or fatwa? Meanwhile, the reaffirmation of an earlier resolution of the Darul Uloom condemning terror is good news — but at the same time we must name the LeT, Jaish and others and send a strong message. The home minister should be careful about the bouquets, as the brickbats can be as swift. As citizens of a secular democratic country with a vibrant judiciary, fatwas have little meaning in present-day India. Salman Khursheed’s timely rejoinder about the futility of a fatwa about non-issues and the need for addressing the real, burning issues — education and employability of Indian Muslims, for example — are laudable. I wish resolutions at Deoband had addressed the following questions: Why do Indian Muslims have the highest levels of illiteracy, both male and female, in the country? Why do we have the highest number of school drop-outs? Why do we have the lowest representation in both the public and the private sector? What steps are we taking to stop pernicious recruiters who lure young impressionable minds towards terror ideologies? A failure to tackle the rapid socio-economic slide will push the faithful instead towards being the last amongst the least. With the Shiv Sena and the VHP joining in, the zealots will raise this needless debate to a crescendo overshadowing real issues. The legal implications of the fatwa even in Islamic countries are often overruled by the ruling dispensation. There is a binding rule that saves the fatwa pronouncements from creating judicial havoc, even in a country like Saudi Arabia. It is unanimously agreed that a fatwa is only binding on its author. One example widely cited that emphasises this is the statement of Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obeikan, then vice-minister of Justice of Saudi Arabia, in an 2006 interview with an Arabic daily: “Even the fatwas of the official authority (official Saudi fatwa institute) is binding on no one, whether individuals or the state.” Al-Obeikan was promoted recently, as an advisor to the royal court. The tendency to nevertheless sometimes present a fatwa as mandatory — even by leading religious authorities — should be fought. The Sheikh of al-Azhar in Cairo, Muhammad Sayid Tantawy, who is the leading religious authority in the Sunni establishment in Egypt (alongside the Mufti of Egypt) said the following about fatwas issued by himself: They “are not binding, but they are not just whistling in the wind either; individuals are free to accept them, but Islam recognises that extenuating circumstances may prevent it.” According to the traditional principles of jurisprudence, the fatwa must be adequate with the needs of the contemporary world in order to be valid. Over 50 Muslim-majority countries have over the last fifty years managed to modernise and alter personal laws in tune with changing societal norms. Egypt has announced 12 per cent reservation for women in Parliament, Saudi Arabia is opening coeducation universities for science and technology, many Islamic countries have banned the “triple talaq” at one go and women are being educated — and incentivised to work in all sectors. Every madrasa or school outside the subcontinent follows a government-approved curriculum which includes modern life sciences. All these reforms have come from within the religious systems, as they have a larger chance of success. But our religious clergy is reluctant to move on such contemporary issues. This politics of isolation is ill-fated in a multi-plural democracy like India. In the last sixty years the community has consistently slipped to the lowest rung of the knowledge and economic ladder, caught in a vicious trap the helps nobody but self-serving political and religious leaderships. A growing revulsion against such leadership is beginning to be apparent — especially in the present generation of young, educated Muslims whose sole aim is to be competitive and employed gainfully. The writer is chairman of the editorial board at the Kanpur-based Urdu newspaper ‘Daily Siyasat Jadid’ Source: Indian Express URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamIslamicWorldNews_1.aspx?ArticleID=2074

The War on Terror Does Not Exist

In 2005, the BBC aired a three-part documentary called, “The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear”. The film was not aired in the US, but it is available to purchase or view on the internet. And in a very clear sense, it is obvious why this documentary was never run on American TV. “The Power of Nightmares” demonstrates that Islamic Fundamentalism and the Neoconservative movement are two sides of the same coin.

The Islamic Fundamentalist movement and the Neoconservative movement began separately, independent of each other. One in the Mid-East, the other in America. But both were reactions to the failures of Western modernity to create a world of sane social orders. At least, initially they were.

Drama at Deoband: Spurious claims of Indian Muslim leadership

Murky goings-on within the Jamiat-ul-ulema

‘You won’t spot a single modern-educated Muslim in this huge carnival’, said Faisal, the owner of a bookshop located adjacent to the Darul Uloom. ‘The maulvis shun them, not just because they d

on’t find them religious enough but also because they fear that they will challenge their hegemony’. He indicated the crowd surging past his shop. Their features, dress and mannerisms all revealed, he said, that they were all poor peasants, madrasa teachers or maulvis. ‘The maulvis have little or no understanding of the modern world, so how can they provide us Muslims with proper leadership?’, he continued. ‘But because the Muslim middle class remains indifferent to community issues, engrossed in their pursuit of material acquisition or simply too scared to speak out against the mullahs’ obscurantist views, the mullahs’ hold on the community continues unchallenged’. ‘That’s why lakhs of Muslims have so easily been mobilized by the Jamiat for this mela’. — Yoginder Sikand,Islamic affairs analyst

URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamIslamicWorldNews_1.aspx?ArticleID=2

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Drama at Deoband: Spurious claims of Indian Musl

im leadership

By Yoginder Sikand

9 November 2009

tens of thousands of men—this was a strictly all-male gathering—descended on the town of Deoband in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district to attend the 30th annual convention of the Jamiat Ulema-I-Hind, a leading body of Muslim clerics of the ultra-conservative Deobandi sect. Sources claimed that the gathering numbered over five hundred thousand, brought in from across India. Impassable crowds clogged the narrow, dusty pathways leading to the venue of the rally, and so, although I had travelled all the way from Bangalore to report on the event, I had to content myself by listening to the speeches relayed by loudspeakers while sitting a mile away, in the portals of the Darul Uloom, possibly the world’s largest madrasa and the nerve-centre of the Deobandi movement.

The event commenced with a maulvi reciting an Urdu poem extolling the sacrifices of the ulema of the Jamiat in India’s freedom struggle. ‘Were it not for us’, he burst forth, ‘you’—by which he probably meant the Hindus of India—‘would still be labouring under the yoke of the British.’ ‘We stiffly opposed the creation of Pakistan. We have sacrificed our lives for the country. We condemn all forms o

f terror. We love our India, whether or not you believe this’, he went on. The men sitting around me—dressed, like the rest of the crowd, in white kurta-pyjama, and sporting unkempt beards and white skull-caps—enthusiastically shook their heads in agreement. Like the maulvi-poet, they laboured under the burden of being forced to prove their patriotism, their anti-Pakistani credentials, and their opposition to terrorism—an unenviable predicament they were compelled to share with the rest of their co-religionists at a time of heightened Islamophobia the world over.

More than the speeches delivered at the rally it was the response of some of those who attended the event, including a number of students and graduates of the Darul Uloom, that interested me. And, among these, it were the cynics who impressed me the most. ‘This is just a political stunt orchestrated by the self-styled head of the Jamiat, Maulana Mahmud Madani’, said Akram, a peasant from a village near Saharanpur. ‘The rally is simply a show of strength, to impress upon the Congress his claim to be the leader of the Muslims, and to curry favour with Congress bosses’.

Akram spoke of murky goings-on within the Jamiat. ‘These selfish mullahs can never agree, though they keep harping on Muslim unity. They love nothing more than fighting among themselves.’ The Jamiat had split into several rival groups, he explained. One was led by the recently deceased Maulana Fuzail. The other two were headed by Maulana Arshad Madani and his nephew, Maulana Mahmud Madani, respectively. Maulana Arshad had recently organized an anti-terrorism conference, which h

ad invited much media attention. Not to be outdone, Akram explained, Mahmud, who had emerged as his principal rival, had now arranged for this mammoth rally. ‘A petty game of one-upmanship’, Akram remarked. Mahmud’s branch of the Jamiat, he claimed, had splurged vast sums of money for this purpose, subsidizing train fares to the men who had been brought in, lured by the prospect of a free holiday in Deoband and free chicken biryani – ‘neither of which’, Akram joked, ‘a true Deobandi could ever refuse’. ‘How can these mullahs unite the Muslims and speak for us, when they cannot even unite among themselves?’, he angrily spluttered.

‘You won’t spot a single modern-educated Muslim in this huge carnival’, said Faisal, the owner of a bookshop located adjacent to the Darul Uloom. ‘The maulvis shun them, not just because they don’t find them religious enough but also because they fear that they will challenge their hegemony’. He indicated the crowd surging past his shop. Their features, dress and mannerisms all revealed, he said, that they were all poor peasants, madrasa teachers or maulvis. ‘The maulvis have little or no understanding of the modern world, so how can they provide us Muslims with proper leadership?’, he continued. ‘But because the Musli

m middle class remains indifferent to community issues, engrossed in their pursuit of material acquisition or simply too scared to speak out against the mullahs’ obscurantist views, the mullahs’ hold on the community continues unchallenged’. ‘That’s why lakhs of Muslims have so easily been mobilized by the Jamiat for this mela’.

Bilal, a student of the Darul Uloom, decried the opposition of the Jamiat leaders to madrasa reforms, which was reflected in the resolution they passed at the conclusion of the conference decrying the suggestion that the Government set up a national m

adrasa board. ‘These politically influential maulvis send their sons to modern schools and even abroad, but they won’t let us madrasa students, most of who come from very poor families, learn anything about the modern world. They want us to remain ignorant so that they can continue to play politics in our name.’ He pointed to an open drain that ran along the wall outside the madrasa, clogged with grey water, plastic bags and blobs of fresh human refuse, out of which emerged an overpowering, nauseous sulphurous stench. Ahead, built int

o the outside wall of a mosque, a door-less toilet was littered with excrement that spilled out onto the street. ‘According to a saying attributed to the Prophet, cleanliness is half of faith. And so, as you can see, here half our faith is in the gutters!’

Bilal took me around the hostels of the madrasa, into dark, dingy airless rooms, each shared by more than half a dozen students. Cobwebs hung like thick curtains in corners, and the floors were strewn with filth. The scenario was even more pathetic at the nearby Darul Uloom Waqf, a madrasa set up by a rival group of Deobandi m

aulvis in the wake of a coup engineered by the Madani family that forcibly ousted the then rector of the Deoband madrasa, Maulana Qari Tayyeb, in 1980. Vegetable peels and waste daal and rice law thrown around in large puddles outside the students’ rooms, under vast armies of flies. ‘The maulvis here, who never tire of claiming to be heirs of the Prophet, simply don’t care about all this. All they hanker after is power and fame’, Bilal rued.

The next morning’s newspapers gave wide coverage to the Deoband rally, focusing particularly o

n one of the many resolutions that the Jamiat had passed—its opposition to the compulsory singing of the Vande Mataram song. Rizwan, a graduate of the Dar ul-Ulum, now teaching in a Deobandi madrasa in Agra, summed up what seemed to be a widely-shared feeling among the participants at the rally. ‘We love India, but it is ridiculous to demand that our loyalty be tested on the basis of our attitude to this song.’ The song, originally contained in a book that openly spewed hatred against Muslims, had generated a major stir even in pre-independence days, he explained. It was also, he pointed out, unacceptable not just to Muslims but to other monotheists, for it spoke of the worship of the motherland as a deity. At the same time, he added, there was simply no need for the J

amiat to have raked up the issue that had been lying dormant for years. ‘It’s probably a deliberate tactic of Maulana Mahmud and his cronies to leap into the limelight by igniting a controversy and then presenting themselves as leaders of the Muslims’, he mused.

Rizwan was equally critical of the media coverage of the rally. ‘The media has pounced on the Vande Mataram issue, conveniently ignoring the other resolutions passed at the rally—the Jamiat’s condemnation of terrorism, its demand for the implementation of the recommendations of the Sachar Committee report, its call f

or combating communalism and providing security to Muslims and so on’. ‘Like our self-styled leaders behind this Jamiat-sponsored drama’, he added ‘the media, too, is simply not interested in the welfare of the Muslim masses. They both revel in stirring wholly avoidable controversies, while it is the hapless Muslim masses who continue to suffer, and whose voices continue to go unheard.’

URL of this Page: http://www.newag

eislam.org/NewAgeIslamIslamicWorldNews_1.aspx?ArticleID=2079

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Asadullah Syed

The roots of terrorism lie in Pak politics

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

03 Nov 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

The roots of terrorism lie in Pak politics

In the short run, the new phase of terrorism in the Frontier and Punjab — will expose the militants’ collaborators and sympathisers across the country. These allies of terrorists include those who help them with boarding and transport facilities, and provide them with information about the targets of attack. Even more crucial is the role of political factions and their leaders that do not condemn terrorism and, instead, go out of their way to drape the killers of innocent children and old men and women in robes designed for the holiest of heroes. This because of the second reality that the roots of terrorism in Pakistan are indigenous; they lie in the enormous work the state has done, by its acts of omission and commission, to eradicate the ideas of liberal Islam and facilitate the rise of obscurantists leaving the entire area of intra-religious discourse open and clear to utterly conservative and dogmatic twisters of texts and exploiters of the faithful’s vaguely understood belief. Pakistan will not be safe from terrorists’ depredations unless a crash programme to build a tolerant, pluralist society is seriously executed.

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Superiority over women: Chapter 1 of Maulvi Imtiaz Ali’s classic ‘Rights of Women’

Urdu Section

05 Nov 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

False Male Superiority over women: Chapter 1 of Maulvi Imtiaz Ali’s classic ‘Rights of Women’

Courtesy: Daily Sahafat, Mumbai URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamCurrentAffairs_1.aspx?ArticleID=2057