Letter to the editor, The Hindu



This is regarding The Hindu's report, "Now, fatwa against insurance" by Atiq Khan

Dear editor,

It seems that when it comes to Muslim issues, all journalism ethics and principles can be safely ignored.




Even before the controversy over the fatwa (opinion) related to Muslim women working in close proximity to men in offices has died down, the prestigious Sunni Muslim seminary, Darul Uloom, Deoband in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh has reportedly come out with a fatwa, which has decreed that in the light of the “Shariat,” opting for an insurance policy is against the tenets of Islam. The fatwa was issued by the Darul Ifta department of Darul Uloom in response to a query.

The seminary has reportedly declared that since the calculation of the money pledged in the policy is based on “interest,” it was un-Islamic to opt for one.

"Even before the controversy... has died down"- the controversy that was created by media and that continues to live in media circles and fuel to this fire is added by media ppl themselves by raiding DuD's darul ifta's website for more "gems."

The writer of this report used the word "reportedly" twice, which means that this entire news report is based on some other report. Then where is that report? If they are sure that fatwa was issued by Darul Uloom then where is the original text so that we can have a look ourselves. Does the use of the term "reportedly" means that The Hindu has not verified the claims they are making in this news report?

When was this fatwa issued and what exactly is the "news value" in this fatwa? Is it a new opinion by DuD contradicting their previous position? Is it a position that was not well-known within the Muslim community? Please provide me some of the reasons why you think this fatwa needed valuable column space in your newspaper?

thanks,

Letter sent May 17th, 2010. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indian Muslims spend 12,000 crores annually on marriages and umra

Image
By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net, Engineering is his profession but community activism is Faizur Rahman’s passion. Urdu-speaking native of Chennai, he writes on religio-political issues in mainstream newspapers of India. Faizur Rahman is an executive committee member of Harmony India, an organisation to promote secularism and communal harmony which is headed by Mr. N. Ram, the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu. He is also the founding secretary of Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought in Islam. He talked to TwoCircles.net on ways Muslims in India can improve their economic conditions only if we check some wasteful and unnecessary expenditures. TCN : Recently in a workshop attended by Muslim community leaders, you created quite a ruckus by saying that Muslims should not go for umra every year. Why are you against umra? FR : Please allow me to clarify. First of all, I am not against Umra. I only pointed out that Umra not being an obligatory ritual in Islam one need not perform it every
Read more

Spend from your wealth

Multiple times in Quran there is mention of spending from the wealth. Maulana Azad's translation of Surah Baqrah: 254 - O Muslims, Do not spend all that We have bestowed on you exclusively on the promotion of your own personal comforts. Spend something out of it in the way of God also before the transitory life given to you comes to an end, and the coming Day stares you hard in the face. On that day, there will be no give and take to obtain salvation; and neither friendship nor intercession will avail. On that day, the righteous deeds alone which one has done here can effect salvation. And remember, those who refuse to believe in this will certainly bring ruin upon themselves.
Read more

Piety and activism

Conventional thinking is that piety is becoming gosha-nasheen, removing yourself completely from the world and becoming one with Allah. This verse in Surah Baqarah explains piety: "It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces to the East and the West; but righteous is he who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Scripture and the prophets; and giveth wealth, for love of Him, to kinsfolk and to orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and to those who ask, and to set slaves free; and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor-due. And those who keep their treaty when they make one, and the patient in tribulation and adversity and time of stress. Such are they who are sincere. Such are the Allah-fearing." [ Surah Baqarah: 177 ] Quran explains piety https://t.co/hmL0676TnE and Maulana Azad explains the aim of Shariah while explaining the verse pic.twitter.com/gNTQw3zODP — کاشف الہدیٰ (@kaaashif) January 7, 2016 Islam has a strong social justice an
Read more