Logging life

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...

In the following verse, Allah tells Prophet Daud (alaihe salaam) that I have made you a khalifa in the earth ( خَلِيفَةً فِي الْأَرْضِ ) so govern among people (فَاحْكُم بَيْنَ النَّاسِ ) with truth (justice) and do not follow your own desire ( بِالْحَقِّ وَلَا تَتَّبِعِ الْهَوَىٰ ). I find it significant that Allah tells Prophet Daud to govern among people and not rule over the people which suggests that correct understanding of "khalifa" is not "badshaah" as it is translated into Urdu below rather Ziauddin Sardar's translation of "trustee" will be closer to the meaning. Also, the verses lays down some guiding principles for the ones occuping the office of khalifa or by extension anyone in the position of governance that it should be done with justice and not one's desires. Pickthall (And it was said unto him): O David! Lo! We have set thee as a viceroy in the earth; therefor judge aright between mankind, and follow not desire that it b...

Gujarat government has made many claims about vibrant Gujarat. Recently, it has also made claims that Muslims in Gujarat are in much better condition that many other states of India. When Narendra Modi’s newspaper ad in Bihar was found to be using image of the UP Muslims , BJP spokesperson claimed that facts about minorities of Gujarat remain the same. He said his party is ready to debate the data. It is time to test the facts and see how Gujarat fares in the light of public data. 1. Muslim population of Gujarat: According to Census 2001 figures, Gujarat has 4.59 million Muslims out of total state population of 50.67 or 9.1% of the population. Total Muslim population in India, according to the same census data is 139.2 million, therefore a total of 3.32% of Indian Muslim population live in this state. Closest state to Gujarat in terms of Muslim population and their share in total state population is Rajasthan with 4.79 million Muslims (8.5% of total). Of the top fifty districts...

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind of today is not the same organization that Abu Ala Maudidi launched in 1941. Starting with the aim of establishing Islamic governance, its purpose and role in India has slowly changed to the Jamaat becoming a champion of secularism and democracy. Its detractors will say that this apparent change in Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) is just tactical, but researcher Irfan Ahmad’s extensive ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and data analysis, published as “Islamism and Democracy in India: The Transformation of Jamaat-e-Islami,” proves that the JIH belief in secularism and democracy is “deeply ideological.” The Jamaat began its life as an isolationist organization, it was an idea chosen by journalist-turned-Islamist-ideologue Maududi who made attainment of an “Islamic state”-the main goal of this organization. Striving for the Islamic state meant that Jamaat members could not participate in democracy, seek government employment, or even study in universities as the...

"There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence. It is not a new creed. It was followed 1,400 years ago by the Prophet all the time when he was in Mecca.” - Badshah Khan A hundred years ago, a young Pathan of just 20 years of age, established a modern school to bring education to his people. Concerned about poverty, ignorance, and violence around him Abdul Ghaffar Khan started his first school in Utmanzai in Frontier Province in 1910 educating boys and girls. It was a successful venture that led to the establishment of several other schools. Pathans loved it and the British Raj did everything they could to stop it. Quite a contrast to what is happening today in the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, home to millions of Pathans. Today in the same region Talibans burn the schools and American Greg Mortenson is busy building schools. Pathans are proud people, they have been farmers, traders, and artists for generations but due...

Mukul Sinha has a PhD in Physics but even before getting his degree he got involved in the rights of the workers in his institute. Years later he completed his law degree and now he works as a lawyer and civil rights activist. One of the founding member of civil rights organization Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM), he has been at the forefront of struggle for justice for victims of Gujarat genocide of 2002. Violence erupted in the aftermath of burning of a train near Godhra in Gujarat. The state government of BJP alleged that Godhra train burning was a case of Islamic terrorism and many Muslims of Godhra were charged under draconian POTA law. Mukul Sinha has successfully fought to get the terrorism charges dropped. A big believer in judicial process, he has participated in Nanavati Commission inquiring into 2002 violence in Gujarat. Though he admits that he doesn’t see much hope from this Commission but he says that it was important to use this platform to raise awareness about issues and...

Minorities Commission as a non-statutory body was set up in 1978. In the days following Babri Masjid demolition it was made a statutory body and in 1993 it came to be called National Commission for Minorities (NCM). Its main object is to safeguard the interest of minorities but its power is even less than the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, and National Human Rights Commission. Lacking any effective tool it is merely a spectator that can make some noise but not be part of the game. Annual Conference of the State Minorities Commission is organized on Wednesday March 31st in Delhi, the last one held on January 20th, 2009 offered 17 recommendations but a year later the “Action Taken Report” on these recommendations suggest anything but action. Read on: Recommendations 1. State Minorities Commissions (SMCs) should be set up in the States where they do not exist. Uniformity in power and organization for all SMCs. 18 states and UTs responded. Declined Punjab, Lakshadweep, C...

Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War by Victoria Schoefield Pretty balanced book about Kashmir between Indian and Pakistani position and also the struggle and challenges of the Kashmiris. One must remember that Kashmiris did nothing to sabotage Indian position in any of the Indo-Pak wars. In 1971, India had an opportunity to force Pakistan to accept Indian position in J&K, but didn’t. Start of Kashmir agitation [p.18] Kashmir was already like the proverbial powder keg. The spark was provided by a butler in the service of a European, Abdul Qadir, who, in July 1931, made a fiery speech calling for the people to fight against oppression. When he was arrested, crowds mobbed the jail, and several others were also arrested. There were further protests at which point the police fired on the crowd. Twenty-one people died. Their bodies were carried in procession to the centre of the town. Hindu shops were broken into and looted. The government retaliated with f...

On March 29, 2002 a Palestinian girl Ayat Al-Akhras killed two Israelis. Victim of the suicide bombing by this 18 year old included a 17 year old Israeli girl Rachel Levi. They lived barely miles apart but in a totally different world, they represent two sides of a conflict that has consumed a large part of the world for more than 60 years. The world that they lived in were very different from each other and they could meet each other only in their death. Photographs of the two girls shocked the world because they looked so much like each other.   Documentary "To Die in Jerusalem" sets up a meeting between the two mothers and though both agree that they both are victims there is nothing else they agree with. There is no agreement on the cause of the violence and also what can be done to bring peace. As the world continue to spiral out of control led by politics, religion, capitalism, and above all greed and hate, do we have a failure to communicate or failure to empathize?...

Shadow war Originally uploaded by TwoCircles.net Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir by Pakistani journalist Arif Jamal. I was expecting this book to be a justification for "jihad" or militancy in Kashmir and also provide more information about strategy and thinking of the militants as supposedly the author had talked to hundreds of militants. The book provides sequence of events that led to militancy in Kashmir but much of it is already public knowledge and there is not much new information in there except it gives time, names, and places of people involved. Syed Ali Shah Gilani of All Party Hurriyat Conference and Syed Salahuddin of United Jihad Council appear in really bad light accused of attacking and killing their adversaries. Interesting thing is that this book is not at all favourable to Pakistani position or takes the side of militants in fact at several points it shows that Indians were willing to go to any length to talk but either Pakistanis...

Radiance: 4-10 Oct 2009 A letter by G. Hasnain Kaif and published in this issue of Radiance magazine lists 8 Muslim organization that opposed partition of India: Khudai Khidmatgar of Frontier Province Punjab Unionist Party National Conference of Kashmir GM Syed's party (though this doesn't appear to be correct as GM Syed supported Pakistan) Jamiatul Ulem Jamaat-e-Islami Majlis Ahrar Khaksar Movement.

Radiance: 6-12 September 2009 Soroor Ahmed's article 'Drought of Ideas, Flood of Corruption Ruin Rural India' is pretty good. He should be ranked as one of the top notch columnist of India. Published in the wake of publication of Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah, three articles are on the controversy over the book. Dr. S. Ausaf Saied Vasfi explains history and sangh view on this subject. Khan Yasir argues that there is nothing new in Jaswant's book. 'The Jinnah Jigsaw' written by Ausaf portrays Jinnah favorably. Showing him as frugal, weeping at the death of his wife, someone who loved Bombay dearly, and him being a brilliant lawyer. This makes me wonder whether is it true that a section of Indian Muslims do have a soft heart for Jinnah? I don't why any Muslim in India will like Jinnah. He is the person who divided the community in three nations and left Indian Muslims in a very bad position.

I have always believed and more I look more evidence I find that Jinnah was not the sole spokesman of Muslims of India and there was considerable opposition to him and Muslim League. More evidence of this appears in a recently published book: TOWARDS FREEDOM — Documents on the Movement for Independence in India 1940 (Part-I): Edited by K.N. Panikkar; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 3450. In the following quote from a review of this book, I have highlighted names of the organizations that opposed the two-nation theory. Though not mentioned below but it is well known that Jamiat Ulema Hind and Deobandi scholars opposed it too. The present exercise, however, convincingly demonstrates that not all Indian Muslims accepted Jinnah’s two-nation theory. The Kerala Provincial Political Conference , the All-India Azad Muslim Conference , and the South Indian Nationalist Muslim Association viewed the Pakistan proposal “un-Islamic” whe...

Muslim leadership in India is mostly about protest. Whether it is Shahbano, Babri Masjid, Salman Rushdie, Polio drops, registration of marriages, Taslima Nasrin, or the latest- Central Madrasa Board. Of course, some of these protests are justified and most of these protests are within the democratic limits but the other side of the democratic work is making demands for the community. Muslim leadership has failed to get any new benefit to the community. Muslim leadership also fails to analyze a situation, incident, or a new proposal and see how the community can benefit from it. It is either the mistrust of the government or our insularity that any new idea is shot down even before it is properly discussed. So instead of seeing how the proposed Central Madrasa Board (CMB) can benefit the community climb out of its pathetic education conditions we seem to think that we are better off without it. Before we see how the Board has the potential to help the community let’s look carefully ...

Ali Anwar Ansari, son of a labourer, has come a long way since his bidi-rolling days. He has been a Member of Parliament of Rajya Sabha since 2006. In between, he has been a Grade IV government employee, activist, journalist, author and fathered a movement for Dalit or Pasmanda Muslims. In 1996, he received KK Birla Foundation fellowship to study condition of Dalit Muslims of Bihar. Anwar toured Bihar and what he found was documented in his book ‘Masavat ki Jang’ (Struggle for Equality). The book created shock-waves among Muslims and confronted them about the practice of caste among Muslims of India. This is the topic that was not discussed prior to this though always present in the society. A look at the matrimonial pages of any Muslim magazine will attest to this fact. Muslim leaders always maintained the Islam is all about equality and that Muslims are brothers to each other. Ali Anwar found many social practices that proved that caste practices are prevalent in Muslims as w...

Assam United Democratic Front made history in 2006 by winning 10 seats in Assam Assembly election. Cashing in on the success, it had launched branches in at least five other states and now calls itself All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). The first serious set back for the three year old party came when it lost the recent by-election to one of the seat previously held by its president. This is a warning sign for the party and what it represents. In the last Lok Sabha election, party president Badruddin Ajmal was able to win a seat, proclaiming proudly that they are here to stay and their 2006 success was no flash in the pan. But the success of UDF has lot to do with the years of goodwill generated by the social work of Deoband graduate and businessman Badruddin Ajmal. Badruddin who won from two places in 2006 assembly election, vacated Jamunamukh and fielded his brother Sirajuddin for the by-election. Sirajuddin won comfortably and though he doesn’t speak Assamese he was able t...

By M. Zajam and Kashif-ul-Huda for TwoCircles.net On the face of it, Muslims have been able to maintain the status-quo in the new assembly of Maharashtra but scratch the surface and witness the emergence of a community gaining political strength. Outgoing Maharashtra assembly had 11 Muslim MLAs, and the latest election also returned 11 Muslim MLAs. The 2009 result saw 5 Muslim candidates coming second, three of those with a margin of less than 10,000 votes. In 2004 elections, 7 Muslim candidates ended up runner-ups and four of these with less than 10,000 votes. So, if we include runner-ups in our analysis it seems Muslims in Maharashtra have lost some political ground. In 2004 elections all Muslim MLAs belonged to either the Congress (INC) or its ally, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Between 2004 and 2009, Muslims of Maharashtra saw multiple anti-Muslim violence, fake encounters, and arrests of Muslim youth after terrorist attacks. Muslims felt helpless and lacked security while the ...

Communalism Combat is a monthly magazine edited and published by husband and wife team of Javed Anand and Teesta Setalvad. Teesta, Shabnam Hashmi, and Harsh Mander though working independently of each other, collectively have done excellent work for justice in the wake of anti-Muslim violence of Gujarat of 2002. Though the violence was well covered by the national media still many people are not ready to believe that Narendra Modi had a hand in it. Some think he is to blamed for not doing enough to stop the violence but he himself was not party to it. All evidence point to his administration actively involved in unleashing the violence, and later doing all they can to subvert the justice. There is enough evidence for those who want to look. May 2009 issue of Communalism Combat magazine puts some of the material in one place that shows that conspiracy angles goes all the way up to Narendara Modi. Read it here: http://sabrang.com/cc/archive/2009/may09/index.html

Franklin Caesar Thomas of Delhi is an optimistic man. In his professional life he used to be engineer employed at BHEL and Indian Railways but he got himself a law degree and since 2004 fighting a full time legal battle for justice for Dalit Christian and Muslims. It may come as a surprise but Ministry of Minority Affairs is playing delay tactic to deny justice to those it is supposed to benefit. Thomas is the National Coordinator of National Council for Dalit Christians. Since 2004, he is leading the fight to remove the Presidential Order of 1950 that excluded Muslim and Christian Dalits from the Scheduled Castes list. His legal fight resulted in Government of India referring the matter of the controversial Presidential Order to the Commission headed by Justice Ranganath Misra Commssion. The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) also known as Ranganath Misra Commission recommended extending the benefits of Scheduled Castes to all Dalits regardless of the ...

Life of Muslims in India is all about symbols. Since independence India has done little for its Muslim population except some symbolic gesture in the name of minority affairs. Whether it is about their wakf, historical mosques, making them presidents and vice-presidents, declaring Prophet Mohammed’s birthday as a national holiday, Hajj subsidy, appointing enquiry commissions that never see the light of the day. Of course, Muslim leaders were willing accomplice in all this acting as brokers to garner all the benefits for themselves in the name of the community. It served the ruling class as well since it gives them nice photo-ops with Muslims. One such symbolic gesture is seen only in the holy month of Ramadan. From Presidents to local MPs and MLAs all vie with one another to throw iftar parties during the month of Ramadan or Ramzan as we like to call it in India. Lavish dinners parties are organized in the name of iftar and hungry Muslim leaders throng to these gatherings to get closer...