Just two days ago, someone asked on Twitter why our Fourth Estate calls bloody attacks on the Shia-Hazaras in Quetta ‘sectarian violence’. “Isn’t it Shia genocide?” I dived into various dictionaries but couldn’t come up with a definitive answer.
Butchery, slaughter, carnage, mass murder and of course genocide have been variously used to describe such bloodlust as is being evidenced in (not just) the Balochistan capital. Your vocabulary is as good as mine.
But will finding the correct word, using the most appropriate, accurate terminology alter the bloody ground reality or render it any clearer? Not really. Then, aren’t there even more significant questions to be asked?
Such as what drives our propensity to hate so much that even a name arouses the vilest of passions. How vile? Well, vile enough for us to kill. Didn’t you hear the ‘motive’ for the killing of a KESC official in Karachi, was said to be […]
Kanchan Gupta
A year-and-a-half after the ‘Lotus Revolution’ that led to Hosni Mubarak’s downfall, Egypt has a President but not a Parliament. Which way shall it go?
Those who remember the dramatic uprising in Egypt in January-February 2011 would also be able to recall the angry faces of young protesters who had gathered at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. But public memory being notoriously short and media’s attention span even shorter than that, few would remember the ‘Lotus Revolution’ in Egypt which followed the ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in Tunisia and was, in turn, followed by the ‘Shoot the Colonel Revolution’ in Libya. A brief recount, therefore, would be in order.
When tens of thousands of young men and women flooded the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other cities across Egypt, demanding the ouster of Hosni Mubarak who had been President since Anwar Sadat’s assassination on October 6, 1981, everybody was taken by surprise. […]
“Will they not, then, ponder over this Qur’an? – or are their hearts sealed”? (Al-Qur’an 47: 24).
– “The petal of a flower may pierce through the heart of a rock – but the Noble Word has no effect on the ignorant.” – Muhammad Iqbal, bale jibrail, preamble
By Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam
Co-author (Jointly with Ashfaque Ullah Syed), Essential Message of Islam, Amana Publications, USA, 2009
This is not to suggest, let alone advocate any direct incorporation of the injunctions of the Qur’an in statecraft, or to politicise the Qur’an in any manner, as that will enable political bodies of diverse orientations to legitimize their respective ideologies and aspirations by interpreting the Qur’an expediently or by venerating their own ideologies on the strength of the Qur’an. The object of this exercise is […]
Sacred Sufi Muslim sites in the city of Timbuktu have come under attack for a second day by an al Qaeda-linked militant group . Mali’s government has called on the United Nations to take action.
Islamist militants in northern Mali attacked Sufi Muslim religious sites for the second day on Sunday, despite growing condemnation from the international community.
The militant group Ansar Dine, which means Defenders of the Faith, destroyed the mausoleums of three saints from the more liberal Sufi sect of Islam with pick axes on Saturday. On Sunday, the Salafist group’s spokesman threatened to destroy all the mausoleums in the city.
“We are going to destroy everything before we apply Shariah law in this city,” Sanda Abu Mohamed said.
Mali’s Culture and Tourism Minister, Fadima Diallo, has called called on the United Nations to take action.
“Mali exhorts the UN to take concrete steps to stop these crimes against the cultural heritage of […]
London: Citing stark examples from school curriculum, a prominent Islamabad-based scholar has said that extreme religious and anti-India views fed into children in schools reinforced the cycle of extremism that showed no signs of receding in Pakistan. Pervez Hoodbhoy, nuclear physicist and commentator on current issues, presented the examples at a seminar in the King’s College on the role of education in combating terrorism, organized by the Democracy Forum. The examples showed by Hoodbhoy, included images and text from a primer that mentioned the Urdu equivalent of A as Allah, B as bandook, T as takrao, J as jihad, H as hijab, K as khanjar and Z as zunoob. He also showed a college going up in flames, containing images of things considered sinful: kites, guitar, satellite TV, carom board, chess, wine bottles and harmonium. http://www.indiatribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9140:in-pakistan-schools-b-for-bandook-j-for-jihad-&catid=121:general-news&Itemid=410
By McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)McClatchy – published Thursday, June 28, 2012
ONE CARDINAL SIN
Syed E. Hasan, Ph. D., Midland Islamic Council: The religion of Islam has two main requirements: belief in the unseen and practicing its teachings.
A Muslim is required to believe in God — the unseen — the Day of Judgment, the prophets and messengers who were sent to humanity from time to time and the divine revelations in the Torah, Bible and Qur’an. Muslims believe in the sole supremacy and oneness of Allah, the creator of the universe and the one who alone has complete power over everything.
In addition, Muslims must fulfill the requirements of the five pillars that constitute the practice of the faith of Islam. These include: declaration of the faith, performing five daily prayers, fasting in the month of Ramadan, paying the zakah (charity) and for those who can physically and financially afford it, pilgrimage (hajj) to […]
syedmdasadullah.wordpress.com 