Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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Supratik
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by Supratik »

brihaspati wrote:
Possible exposure and training in official "diplomacy" will make avoidance and bypassing pointed questions second nature.

"Cannot do officially" can entirely avoid saying that such "cannot" is officially and politically imposed by political bosses important for promotions and plum postings, or that there is insufficient intellectual capacity to at all manage exposure of Islamism to a hostile audience, or that there is secret admiration or sympathy for the theology itself.

As for Indian-Americans being specifically dubbed "Hindu fascist sympathizer" - the greater accusation about this comes from Indian-Indians. I know exactly when this cacophony started - and it was led by a group whose faces are often seen in the IHC and are known to be close to certain political circles long in central power. The US reflection of this cacophony started off after the desi pack started off - and it was by the US counterpart of the same historian-politico network. In fact the discourse within US is pretty divided over this and not the homogeneous "Hindu fascist" labelling that you are claiming. This labelling comes from desi sources.

Now - pray tell us - is being known as "Hindu fascist sympathizer" problematic? And exactly in what domain does it raise problems?

You are getting personal here so my last reply. Whether you like it or not the official policy has been the same irrespective of the Govt in power including when the NDA/BJP was in power. The "Hindu fascist sympathizer" labeling comes from leftist and pro-Pak elements and groups both from India and within US. I did not say anything about whether it is problematic or not but that it was a label used by these groups to depict Indian-Americans or at least sections of it for being a pain in their butt.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by brihaspati »

^^^Sure. Again there is avoidance of acknowledging why it was a "cannot". For a diplomat it could have onlee come from one of the three sources I mentioned.

Further, surely diplomats arguing with concrete evidence - both historical and current -as to the consistency of the theological drive as relevant for continuous regeneration of terrorism, should have no problem in dismissing the label. So why was the issue of the label necessary in your post when we were discussing dilpomatic role?

Anyway, even the consistency of "policy" of denying the role of this theology - is a continuation of the colonial hangover in the state apparatus. So if the admin is relatively independent of regime changes in its implementations - the state apparatus itself is part of the project of whitewashing - which in turn is consistent with its creation under British imperialism.

If it is said that the state appartus whitewashed because politico bosses ordered them to - then state apparatus has no brains of its own or even should not claim to have one. If it is said that they whitewash irrespective of regimes - that shows that they do it out of other reasons than political compulsions, which means personal ideological sympathies or perhaps orders from older colonial connections and possible continuing interfaces. In that case too it shows absence of brains.

It is rather devious to mention western support for Islamophilia and anti-Hindu anti-India sentiments in favour of Pak, in connection with the labeling business - as merely coincidental with Indian congrez-left leaning academics and politicians. The material with which US and British scholars constructed this label and made it a campaign issue, was first provided by Indian scholars and political voices close to the regime or regime supported. It was Indian semi-official, academic, and activist as well as political voice which ran this demand first on US scholarship.

There is a concrete paper trail in the scholarly domain as to who started the game. US was used by Indian self-proclaimed "secular" politicians and historians/activists as a panic reaction to the rise of BJP - in the same way Pakistani or BD politicians use the western nations for their own dmoestic power games. No use trying to whitewash the state's role in this. If admin and diplomats participated in it - they stand responsible for the wind in Islamist sails too. In spite of all sorts of shredding and burning documents have a way of surviving. One day, there will surely be a day of reckoning for each and every personnel's role. If not in person then at least in memory and in public knowledge.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by A_Gupta »

An essay by Theodore Dalrymple, reviewing a number of books on Islamism in Europe.
http://www.claremont.org/publications/c ... detail.asp

Concluding,
Will these books appear to have been unduly alarmist in half a century's time? I certainly hope so, and indeed suspect that it might be so. We have had many perils and predicted apocalypses before. Islamism, and indeed (in my belief) the whole of Islam, is potentially very vulnerable to the corrosive effect of the intellectual acid-bath of rational criticism. Therefore, what we have to fear is fear itself: a fact of which the Islamists are themselves fully aware. I hope only that the ultimate critique of Islam in Europe is not a fascist one.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by Supratik »

brihaspati wrote:^^^Sure. Again there is avoidance of acknowledging why it was a "cannot". For a diplomat it could have onlee come from one of the three sources I mentioned.

Further, surely diplomats arguing with concrete evidence - both historical and current -as to the consistency of the theological drive as relevant for continuous regeneration of terrorism, should have no problem in dismissing the label. So why was the issue of the label necessary in your post when we were discussing dilpomatic role?

Anyway, even the consistency of "policy" of denying the role of this theology - is a continuation of the colonial hangover in the state apparatus. So if the admin is relatively independent of regime changes in its implementations - the state apparatus itself is part of the project of whitewashing - which in turn is consistent with its creation under British imperialism.

If it is said that the state appartus whitewashed because politico bosses ordered them to - then state apparatus has no brains of its own or even should not claim to have one. If it is said that they whitewash irrespective of regimes - that shows that they do it out of other reasons than political compulsions, which means personal ideological sympathies or perhaps orders from older colonial connections and possible continuing interfaces. In that case too it shows absence of brains.

It is rather devious to mention western support for Islamophilia and anti-Hindu anti-India sentiments in favour of Pak, in connection with the labeling business - as merely coincidental with Indian congrez-left leaning academics and politicians. The material with which US and British scholars constructed this label and made it a campaign issue, was first provided by Indian scholars and political voices close to the regime or regime supported. It was Indian semi-official, academic, and activist as well as political voice which ran this demand first on US scholarship.

There is a concrete paper trail in the scholarly domain as to who started the game. US was used by Indian self-proclaimed "secular" politicians and historians/activists as a panic reaction to the rise of BJP - in the same way Pakistani or BD politicians use the western nations for their own dmoestic power games. No use trying to whitewash the state's role in this. If admin and diplomats participated in it - they stand responsible for the wind in Islamist sails too. In spite of all sorts of shredding and burning documents have a way of surviving. One day, there will surely be a day of reckoning for each and every personnel's role. If not in person then at least in memory and in public knowledge.

The issue of the label was used to show that inspite of a lot of propaganda against the Indian community in the US they have done
a commendable job and yes, the labeling was/is a panic reaction to the rise of the BJP. AFAIK, diplomats and admin did not participate in it. IMO the label was also a frustration with the fact that inspite of years of effort they couldn't take Kashmir out of India.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by brihaspati »

By not pushing for acceptance of the underlying driving theological factor of religious exclusivist and genocidal campaign - and onlee pinning it on a regime and its political and military institution and their territorial ambition onlee, the admin and diplomats were participating in the whitewashing of the real factor. In the background of regime related politically supported activism and intellectualism that effectively laid the blame on the non-Muslim - this did lend wind to western opportunism on J&K and pressure to settle it as a mere territorial issue.

The western scholars and politicos were specifically supplied with points by Indian scholars and activists, and even the terminology was coined initially by Indians, and western activism using this specific route started off onlee after the Indians pretending academic neutrality launched their virulent political campaign. Since both this activism and the admin/diplomats were connected one way or the other with the specific political regime - they are both primarily responsible along with the underlying political front.
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Egypt liberals spurn Islamist offer
Egyptian liberals have refused to sit on a body drafting a new constitution dominated by Islamists, despite an offer by the Muslim Brotherhood to give them more seats, in a sign of growing political polarisation after the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

The new constitution is due to be written by a 100-member assembly of politicians and public figures over the next six month. However, the body is dominated by Islamists, reflecting their resounding victory in parliamentary elections, and dozens of non-Islamist representatives have already walked out complaining that their voices are being drowned out. That has put the assembly's legitimacy in doubt.

Around 30 members of the assembly have so far withdrawn including the state's top Islamic authority Al-Azhar, the Coptic Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical churches and a Constitutional Court representative.
Interesting move by Al-Azhar.
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Post by Agnimitra »

Women's art in the ME.
An avenue of free expression
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Islam group accused of French judge kidnap plot
A group of Islamic radicals have been charged with planning to kidnap a French judge.

Prosecutor Francois Molins said that the Forsane Alizza group, or Knights of Pride, did physical training in parks and forests, collected weapons and preached hate and violence on their internet site, showing clips of Osama bin Laden.
...
Mr Molins said the investigation showed the network was organised around Forsane Alizza leader Mohammed Achamlane.

He stressed the group had no link to the killing spree last month in Toulouse that left seven dead. Suspected gunman Mohamed Merah was killed in a police stand-off.
...

The prosecutor said several terror plans appeared to be in the works, including the kidnapping of a judge in Lyon. An official close to the investigation said the targeted judge is Jewish.

Mr Molins said: "All the suspects confirmed Mohammed Achamlane's role of animator, co-ordinator and emir and his constant concern about acquiring weapons."

He said the plan to kidnap a judge who dealt with a child abuse case of a member of the Lyon cell was hatched at a September meeting. The magistrate in question has been placed under police protection.

Other potential targets included people from groups that have spoken out against the Muslim community, the prosecutor said.

Police found stashes of weapons during their raids last Friday in the Paris region and the cities of Nantes, Marseille, Nice, and Toulouse as well as documents and computer equipment. The probe so far has shown that members had consulted internet sites showing how to make explosives, Mr Molins said.
I wonder whether Euro interests use the Islamist mafia to counter the Jewish mafia on that continent. The Jewish mafia-merchant-banker network is widespread and powerful in Europe.
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Egypt: Christian teen jailed for insulting Islam

Quran-burning Gainesville pastor speaks in Jacksonville, gives his views on Islam
"If there's one thing Islam hates, Islam hates the freedom of speech."

That theme held constant through the evening as controversial pastor Terry Jones addressed a meeting of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Northeast Florida on Tuesday night.
Somali Olympic chief killed in Mogadishu suicide blast
The president of Somalia's Olympic committee and the head of the country's soccer federation were among the at least six people killed by a female suicide bomber at Mogadishu's newly reopened national theater Wednesday.

Sports official Shafici Mohyadin said the two were killed when the blast hit the first-anniversary celebration of Somalia's satellite television channel.

Al-Shabab insurgents claimed responsibility for the blast in yet another stark reminder of the fragile security in the capital, Mogadishu.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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Paki man angry at protesters wearing burqas
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Islamists impose sharia in Mali’s Timbuktu
Coup » More than 90 percent of the city’s roughly 300 Christians have fled.
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI | The Associated Press
First Published Apr 04 2012 06:17 pm • Last Updated Apr 04 2012 11:17 pm

Bamako, Mali • Mali’s crisis deepened Wednesday, as officials in the fabled northern city of Timbuktu confirmed that the Islamic rebel faction that seized control of the town over the weekend has announced it will impose sharia law.

Rebels in the country’s distant north have taken advantage of the power vacuum created last month when renegade soldiers in the capital of Bamako overthrew the nation’s democratically elected leader. In the chaos that followed the March 21 coup, they advanced on strategic towns in the north, including the ancient city of Timbuktu, located over 620 miles from the capital.

The ethnic Tuareg rebels included a secular faction fighting for independence, and an Islamic wing, Ansar Dine, whose reclusive leader called a meeting of all the imams in the city on Tuesday to make his announcement.

"He had the meeting to make his message to the people known, that sharia law is now going to be applied," said the Mayor of Timbuktu Ousmane Halle, who was reached by telephone. "When there is a strongman in front of you, you listen to him. You can’t react," he said, when asked what the reaction was of the imams of a historic town known for its religious pluralism and its moderate interpretation of Islam.

"Things are going to heat up here. Our women are not going to wear the veil just like that," said the mayor.

Kader Kalil, the director of a communal radio station who was asked to cover the meeting and who later interviewed the Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghali, confirmed that sharia had been imposed.

He said in addition to the wearing of the veil, thieves will be punished by having their hands cut off and adulterers will be stoned to death.


In a show of force, the Islamic rebels on Wednesday drove through the town in a tank-like armored-personnel carrier, their ominous black flag flapping in the wind above the cannon.

More than 90 percent of the city’s roughly 300 Christians have fled since the city fell to the rebels on Sunday, said Baptist Pastor Nock Ag Info Yattara, who is now in Bamako. He said not one of the 205 people in his congregation, which has worshipped in Timbuktu since the 1950s, has stayed behind. "We cannot live like that," he said.

Mali has effectively been partitioned in two ever since the rebel takeover. The fighters started their insurgency in January, but only succeeded in taking a dozen small towns before the coup. Then in a lightning advance, they took the three largest towns including the provincial capital of Kidal on Friday, the largest town of Gao on Saturday and Timbuktu on Sunday. What is worrying is that it is not yet clear which rebel faction has the upper hand.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/5385 ... p.html.csp
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Sorry if this was posted before:
American Hispanic Moslem convert sentenced to 25 years for bomb plot

Islamist group Ansar Dine supports "Islam and Sharia" in Mali
(AGI) Bamako - Omar Hamahel is the military chief of Mali's Islamist group Ansar Dine, which controls the city of Timbuktu.
He said that they are supporting the enforcement of the 'Sharia' Islamic law. "Our war is a holy war, a legitimate war.
We are against rebellions, against independences. We oppose any revolution that is not led in Islam's name. We have come to practise Islam in the name of Allah", the military leader said, speaking in French, in an amateur footage, adding that his group wants, above all, to introduce the 'Sharia': "we want this, not the independent state of Azawad."
Article by Kecia Ali, Associate Proff of Religion at Boston University:
HuffPost Jummah: Muslims in America Have Changed and Grown
Looking back, I realize that much has happened in 10 years -- though I personally have stood on the sidelines. Scholars, activists and community members have founded organizations (some enduring, others transient), written books, created websites, spoken up in mosques, begun to blog and gone about living Muslim lives in a variety of ways. Female leadership has sometimes been controversial (the 2005 New York mixed-gender Friday prayer) and sometimes widely accepted (two large organizations, ISNA and the national MSA, elected female presidents). However, it's also the case that deliberately cultivated fear of Muslims has made the climate even more difficult for Muslims with critical perspectives to speak up without giving ammunition to critics.

Is it the same thing all over again? As I notice the buds beginning to appear on my azaleas, I remember that a decade ago, they were much smaller. From year to year, the growth has been imperceptible -- each spring seems like a repeat of the year before. And yet though it is the same process, the years have brought change and growth. And in this are signs for those who reflect.
China Adds 6 Uighurs to Terrorist List

First air travel prayer time calculator launched
DUBAI, APRIL 6 - The world's first air travel prayer time calculator has been launched to help Muslims know their prayer times along the flight path of their journey. So reports Arabian Business online.

Singapore-based Crescentrating has launched the application which also gives information on the availability of prayer facilities at airports around the world. Based on the departure airport and time, as well as the arrival airport and time, the application calculates the prayer times along its flight path, Crescentrating said in a statement.
...
With the Muslim travellers on the rise, there was a real need for such a tool, it added.
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Easter bomb attack near Nigeria church kills at least 20
By Victor Ulasi (AFP) – 3 hours ago

KADUNA, Nigeria — A car bomb blast outside a church in northern Nigeria on Easter Sunday killed at least 20 people and put the country on alert over fears of further attacks, rescue officials and residents said.
The explosion, a stark reminder of Christmas Day attacks that left dozens of people dead in Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer, hit the city of Kaduna, a major cultural and economic centre in the north.

Motorcycle taxi drivers and passers-by caught much of the blast.
As news of the attack spread, security forces boosted patrols in key areas, including in the capital Abuja, where soldiers were sent to reinforce police posted near churches, an AFP correspondent reported.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
At least one car said to be driven by a suicide bomber was involved in the Kaduna attack, but a rescue official speaking on condition of anonymity said two vehicles packed with explosives detonated.

"Now we have 20 dead from the twin explosions," the rescue official, who was not authorised to speak publicly, told AFP. Officials were still counting the number of wounded, he added.
"Bombs concealed in two cars went off just opposite this church," he said.
A police officer at the scene said a man believed to be a suicide bomber driving a car was stopped at a checkpoint near the church and turned back, but drove to a nearby area close to a hotel and detonated the bomb.
Other cars in the area were damaged, but it was unclear if they were also carrying explosives, he said.
A spokesman for the national emergency management agency said most of the victims appeared to be motorcyle taxi drivers.
Police said the explosion was a bomb, but did not comment further.
"We have a bomb explosion. We are trying to sort things out," police spokesman Aminu Lawal told AFP.
Residents reported seeing dead and injured being taken away. An AFP correspondent said he saw 10 bodies, while one resident said he counted at least 10 wounded.
"From my balcony, I could see policemen loading the dead and the injured into waiting vans," another resident said.
One resident said the explosion was strong enough to shake his house and cause his ceiling to cave in. He ran to the site, which had already been cordoned off, but he said he could see damage to the Assemblies of God Church as well as cars.
Islamist group Boko Haram carried out a series of attacks on churches and other locations on Christmas day, the bloodiest at a church outside Abuja, where 44 people died.
Authorities as well as foreign embassies had warned of the possibility of an attack on Easter Sunday.
Boko Haram's increasingly bloody insurgency has left more than 1,000 people dead since mid-2009.
Police and soldiers have often been the victims of such attacks, though Christians have occasionally been targeted as well.
The group also claimed responsibility for the August suicide bombing of UN headquarters in the capital Abuja which killed 25 people.
Its deadliest attack yet occurred in the northern city of Kano on January 20, when coordinated bombings and shootings left at least 185 people dead.
An attempt to hold indirect talks between Boko Haram and the government last month appears to have collapsed, with a mediator quitting over leaks to the media and a spokesman for the Islamists saying they could not trust the government.
Nigeria's 160 million population is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.
Despite a number of high-profile arrests and heavy-handed military raids, Nigerian authorities have appeared unable to stop the attacks.
President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the oil-producing Niger Delta region, said in his Easter message that "as people of faith, we must never succumb to hopelessness and despair."
There has been intense speculation over whether Boko Haram has links to outside extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda's north African branch.
Diplomats say such links so far appear limited to training for some Boko Haram members in northern Mali with Al-Qaeda elements, without significant evidence of operational ties.
Analysts say deep poverty and frustration in Nigeria's north has fed the violence, pushing young people toward extremism.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... 75b738.2b1
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Imam blesses union of gay Muslim couple in France
Two Muslim gay men, deeply in love, tied the knot in France with the blessing of an imam.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/nyreg ... .html?_r=1
Seeking to Clear a Path Between Yoga and Islam
\
Mr. Rashid, a Muslim, said he had long believed that practicing yoga was tantamount to “denouncing my religion.” “Yoga is not for Muslims,” he said. “It was forbidden.” But after moving to New York in 1997 from Bahrain, he slowly began to rethink his stance. Now Mr. Rashid, 56, has come full circle: not only has he adopted yoga into his daily routine, but he has also encouraged other Muslims to do so — putting himself squarely against those who consider yoga a sin against Islam. In New York City, where yoga has become as secular an activity as spinning or step aerobics, the potential sins of yoga are not typically debated by those clad in Lululemon leggings. But in some predominantly Muslim pockets like Jackson Heights, Queens, yoga has been slow to catch on, especially among first-generation immigrants, newly arrived from cultures where yoga is considered Hindu worship.The religious opposition to yoga also extends to some Christian sects. One widely publicized clash came in 2010, when R. Albert Mohler Jr., an evangelical leader and the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, declared the practice of yoga blasphemous because of what he said were its pantheistic roots.

In India, near-annual pushes by members of Parliament to make yoga compulsory in schools have riled Muslim parents who feel it bridges on indoctrination. When a member of Parliament proposed to insert yoga into most curriculums in 2010, wording was included to exempt things like madrasas, or Islamic schools.

Four years ago, a council of Malaysian Muslim clerics issued a fatwa against yoga, declaring it haram, or forbidden by Islamic law. The ruling followed similar edicts in Egypt and Singapore, where one of the earliest bans was issued in the early 1980s.

The fatwas typically cited the Sanskrit chants that often flowed through yoga sessions and which are considered Hindu prayer by some Muslims. According to “Yoga in the Hindu Scriptures” by H. Kumar Kaul, yogic principles were first described in the Vedas, the Sanskrit scriptures that form the backbone of Hinduism, and are considered to be over 10,000 years old. Even the word “namaste,” which is often used to open and close a yoga session, invokes the divine. Given that cultural history, it was understandable that when Mohd A. Qayyoom, an imam who runs the Muhammadi Community Center of Jackson Heights, joined a yoga demonstration at an interfaith festival in Jackson Heights last summer, it did not go unnoticed.
His participation drew instant reproach from the community, he said. “As soon as we finished our event, they said, ‘Imam, what is that, why are you doing that?’ ” he said. “ ‘This is not within our Islam.’ ” But Imam Qayyoom said he had come to believe that Islam and yoga could be compatible — if the Sanskrit benedictions are left out, he said, and women’s skin-tight yoga gear ( Burkini Yoga) is traded for more conservative garments. “Reformed, it will be more popular” among Muslims, he said. “It will not contradict with Islamic religion.” Others are less convinced.
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Post by ramana »

I guess they can get together with Cristian Yoga folks and exchange notes.
If the Sanskrit benedictions are not there the Yoga is only partially useful.
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Hamza Yusuf, one of the most popular Sheikhs in the Anglosphere, has this lecture on meat-eating in Islam. He discourages it, especially beef! And he quotes a saheeh hadith of Mohammad that supposedly says that the meat of the cow is a disease, and its milk is a blessing. Eat that, Paki followers of Imam Rabbani, who encouraged Indo-Moslems to eat beef just to draw the line between themselves and Indics!

[youtube]aXI5d-MYuf4#![/youtube]
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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/deoba ... rs/932486/
Deoband issues fatwa against running beauty parlours
Islamic seminary Darul Ulum Deoband has issued a fatwa against beauty parlours saying running such a place is against the Shariat law. The fatwa was issued in response to a question posed before the Darul Uloom asking whether the profession of running beauty parlours by Muslim women is justified by the law according to the Shariat. The fatwa said Muslim women are not permitted to practice this profession under Shariat. "Women are not allowed to run beauty parlours as it is against the norms of parda," Mufti Arif of Darul Ulum Deoband said.
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Post by ramana »

What happens to Shanaaz Hussein begum?

I think its a mischievous question to corner the Mufti. What need does a gadha have for beauty parlor? He should stick to things he knows.
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TOI article on decline of Urdu enrollment in Hyderabad:

LINK

...
Initially, the scheme for Urdu education was being implemented in only nine mandals identified by the Union government as educationally backward minorities concentrated areas in Kurnool, Kadapa, Anantapur, Nizamabad and Medak districts. Now, this scheme covers all the districts of the state. :eek: The objective of this scheme is to provide financial support to the state for appointing new Urdu teachers and paying honorarium to existing Urdu teachers for teaching the students. Financial assistance is provided for appointment of Urdu teachers in any locality where more than 25 per cent of the population is Urdu-speaking. Honorarium is paid to part-time teachers for teaching Urdu to the students at the rate of Rs 1,000 per month. The scheme covers about 1,400 Urdu teachers with a budgetary allocation of Rs 5.84 crore each during 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Similarly, the Union government launched the area intensive programme for infrastructure development for minority institutions in 2007-08 with an outlay of Rs 38.78 crore in five phases in the state with 100 per cent central assistance.

Incidentally, the data provided by the School Education Department is in sharp contrast to the statistics provided by the District Information System on Education (DISE). The State Report Cards 2010-11 on elementary education in India gives a somewhat better picture of Urdu medium enrolment in AP. The report cites a figure of 3,21,492 children enrolled in Urdu medium schools during the year. The enrolment included 2,05,370 in primary sections, 58,246 in upper primary classes and 57,876 in high schools.

While it is for these two state and central agencies to clarify who has the right figures, it is apparent that all is not well with the Urdu medium schools. :((

For years, the vacancies of Urdu teachers have not been filled up in many of these schools, with the result that in the absence of teachers for different subjects, the students found it an easy option to drop out. This may explain why the drop-out rate is on the rise in Urdu medium schools, right from primary and upper primary levels to high schools. The poor quality of education imparted in these schools is also reflected in the low percentage of passes among Urdu medium students in SSC year after year. The authorities must check this drift or else Urdu will suffer a body blow in the state.

-Syed Amin Jafri

(The writer is a member of AP Legislative Council and journalist)
What if Urdu medium is a dean end in modern life?
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by Aditya_V »

Carl wrote:Hamza Yusuf, one of the most popular Sheikhs in the Anglosphere, has this lecture on meat-eating in Islam. He discourages it, especially beef! And he quotes a saheeh hadith of Mohammad that supposedly says that the meat of the cow is a disease, and its milk is a blessing. Eat that, Paki followers of Imam Rabbani, who encouraged Indo-Moslems to eat beef just to draw the line between themselves and Indics!
This will never succeed and the many Islamic scholars have aldready denounced the Hadith as not Authentic. It would be a complete blow to many sub continental and Arab Muslim leaders hiting a raw nerve as well as the American Beef industry which the State Department often intervens on its behalf.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by tejas »

The authorities must check this drift or else Urdu will suffer a body blow in the state.
The horror, the horror.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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Aditya_V wrote:This will never succeed and the many Islamic scholars have aldready denounced the Hadith as not Authentic.
Really? Like who? I don't disagree that there are conflicting hadith, but there is a perfectly sensible way to reconcile them on a gradechart of psychophysical development.
-----------------------------
Al-Guardian:
Sex and Islam do mix, but not in America
This is most noticeable in what is currently deemed the great "epidemic" of single, professional Muslim American women in their 30s who face a double standard. Unlike men, they are unfairly accused of forfeiting domesticity for the sake of personal ambition. As the communities have failed to establish a healthy paradigm for social interactions, there is no quick-fix solution. Thus, they are increasingly marginalised as write-offs, ultimately destined to roam forever as the single walking dead.
I have noticed the above, too, in circles I move in, especially the more educated and intelligent Moslem women. They're very devoted to their faith, even wear hejab while managing a successful career, but can't seem to find a worthy spouse.
---------------------------

Norway killer found sane
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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Female British convert is a terror suspect on the run
ONCE the girl next door in a town in Ireland, Samantha Lewthwaite is now on the run from Kenyan police who suspect her of involvement in an al-Qaeda bomb plot.

Lewthwaite’s journey from an ordinary Banbridge schoolgirl to Islamic extremism is unique.

The widow of 7/7 suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay, now dubbed the White Widow, is the focus of BBC Radio Four’s The Report, which spoke to those who knew and lived near Lewthwaite during her many years in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where the teenager first found her adopted religion of Islam.

In the mid-1990s she moved back to England, where she was born, with her Ulster mother Christine and father Andrew, a former soldier.

Councillor Raj Khan said the girl who grew up in a quiet English street is not the one portrayed in the media. “She was a jolly child, a jolly friend, a really good person… well respected in the Pakistani and Muslim community and a really good human being,” he added.

“She could be led, but she’s not a leader. I think, if anything, she’s been pushed into it, threatened into it but not doing it willingly,” he said.

Befriending a Muslim family, Samantha converted to Islam in her mid-teens. By 17 she had changed her name to Sherafiyah and was wearing a hijab.

Aylesbury councillor Niknam Hussein told the BBC she knew the family well. “She was the one who initiated becoming a Muslim.”

While studying politics and religion in London in 2002 she met fellow Muslim convert Germaine Lindsay. They married before Lindsay carried out a suicide bomb attack on the London Underground in July 2005, leading to the deaths of 26. Shortly after the bombings, she issued a statement saying she had no prior knowledge of the attacks, and condemned the killings.

Lewthwaite gave birth to two children before travelling to Kenya in August 2011. In January, police in Kenya announced that she was wanted for a suspected terror plot. An online Islamic group last month claimed she was alive and well. The Muslim Youth Network claimed she had fled a terror base in Mombasa with hundreds of detonators.

The group said: “Praise be to Allah our walall (sister) is safe now… 500 bombs fuses?!”

It’s now almost four months since Lewthwaite disappeared after being allegedly linked to a group associated with al-Qaeda in Somalia, but interest in the White Widow seems unlikely to fade.

Police said Lewthwaite had been chief financier of an operation to blow up hotels and shopping centres on Kenya’s coast last Christmas and New Year. There were claims she instructed colleagues in bomb-making. Reports suggest she has fled to Somalia. – Belfast Telegraph
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by Haresh »

Syrian opposition army imposes jizya on Christians in Homs

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/04/syria ... -homs.html

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." -- Qur'an 9:29

Muslim spokesmen in the West routinely claim that this verse has no applicability in the modern world. Here are yet more Muslims who didn't get that memo. We have seen this recently in Tunisia as well.

"Syrian opposition army imposes Islamic tax on Christians in Homs," from BBC MidEast, April 10 (thanks to David):

Al-Haqiqah in Arabic, a web site published by the opposition France-based Syrian National Council for Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation, on 9 April publishes a 1,300-word "exclusive" report saying that Al-Faruq Battalion, which is affiliated with the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA), is imposing Jizyah (an extra tax imposed on non-Muslims living under Muslim rule) on Christians in Homs Governorate. The report also says that "hundreds of Pakistani armed men" arrived in Homs to fight against the regular Syrian Army.
The report cites "Syrian citizens in a number of [Christian] villages in Wadi al-Nasara, which is part of Tal Kalakh district in Homs Governorate," saying that "armed men from the Wahhabi Al-Faruq Battalion, which is active in Homs and its districts, have started
asking the residents of those villages to pay Jizyah and Kharaj." Kharaj is the Islamic term for property tax. The report says: "This is the first action of its kind since the Syrian uprising started, or at least since it turned into an 'armed Islamic revolution' and the Islamists dominated the street a few months ago."

The report cites citizens from those Christian villages saying that armed men from the said battalion force citizens to pay the Islamic taxes and threaten to kidnap or kill them or members of their families if they refuse to comply. One citizen is cited saying that "the countryside of the city of Tal Kalakh is now under the mercy of the armed Al-Faruq Battalion members, who are freely roaming the region as if they were the state's security and administrative agency." He says some of those who refused to pay Jizyah had their sons kidnapped or killed. The report, citing this unidentified man, says: "He estimated the number of people who were kidnapped in the region because they refused or were unable to pay Jizyah at more than 20. He said that while there is absolutely no news about some of them, others are certainly kept in detention centres the armed men created in Ammar al-Husn village, which turned into an operation headquarters for the armed men and their authority in the region."...

The report also cites "very reliable local sources" saying that Dayr B'albah district in Homs and the nearby town of Tir M'allah "are now full of Pakistani fighters." The report adds: "This is the first time fundamentalist Pakistani fighters are reported in any of the Arab or Islamic countries that witnessed an influx of foreign Jihadists. The sources explained the presence of these fighters in Syria by saying that almost all of them came from Turkey and Europe, particularly the UK, which has a large Pakistani community numbering millions. This community was and still is the biggest reservoir for fundamentalist fighters outside the Islamic world." The report adds: "The sources said local and Arab armed men, in addition to the residents of the two towns, complain of the difficulty to communicate with these Pakistani mujahidin, as none of them knows Arabic. The two towns are among the most conservative and fanatic regions in Syria. They were an important source for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Combatant Vanguard during the crisis of the eighties."
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by brihaspati »

Carl wrote:
Aditya_V wrote:This will never succeed and the many Islamic scholars have aldready denounced the Hadith as not Authentic.
Really? Like who? I don't disagree that there are conflicting hadith, but there is a perfectly sensible way to reconcile them on a gradechart of psychophysical development.
says Shahi Bukhari and therefore taken to be unchallengeable, he quotes all the versions available to him:
5228. It is related from 'A'isha that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, came to her since she had menstruated at Sarif before entering Makka. She was weeping and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, asked, "What is the matter? Have you started your period?" "Yes," she replied. He said, "This is something that Allah has decreed for the daughters of Adam, so do everything that someone on hajj does but do not do tawaf of the House." She said, "When we were at Mina, I was brought some beef and I asked, 'What is this?' They said, 'The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, sacrificed a cow on behalf of his wives.'"
There are whole passages about eating sacrificial meat, in case it is claimed that the sacrifice was not for eating.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by Aditya_V »

Carl wrote:
Aditya_V wrote:This will never succeed and the many Islamic scholars have aldready denounced the Hadith as not Authentic.
Really? Like who? I don't disagree that there are conflicting hadith, but there is a perfectly sensible way to reconcile them on a gradechart of psychophysical development.

An example

Cow meat milk disease.
I Happen to read a book called “Chashma-e-shifa-Prophetic medicine" in which the author has naratted one hadith that prophet (pbuh) said “There is cure in cow’s milk, its butter is medicine and its meat is disease”.
Your Question: Can u please let me know from where this hadith is taken from (Bukhari, Muslim, etc ………..) or the isnaad of it, is it a sahi hadith.
Respected brother, to the best of our knowledge we have not found the above quoted narration from you in any of the authentic and established Books of Sahih Hadeeth…..besides the very Sunnah or practice of the Messenger of Allah (saws) whereby he (saws) allowed the believers to sacrifice a cow and consume its meat is directly against the ‘matan’ or content of the above quoted narration by you. If cow’s flesh was indeed a disease, the Messenger of Allah (saws) would never have allowed the believers to sacrifice cows or consume their meat.
My take-and watch here is threat being issued below

Respected brother, we remind you as we remind ourselves, that one should be extremely careful when quoting something from the Messenger of Allah (saws), and attribute to his blessed name nothing except what is the confirmed truth….for whatever he (saws) said, or did, or allowed is law and an example for the believers until the Day of Judgment. If one invents something from themselves and attributes that falsehood to the Noble Prophet (saws), they will have a grievous penalty indeed!
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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Aditya_V wrote:Cow meat milk disease.
…..besides the very Sunnah or practice of the Messenger of Allah (saws) whereby he (saws) allowed the believers to sacrifice a cow and consume its meat is directly against the ‘matan’ or content of the above quoted narration by you. If cow’s flesh was indeed a disease, the Messenger of Allah (saws) would never have allowed the believers to sacrifice cows or consume their meat.
My take-and watch here is threat being issued below

Respected brother, we remind you as we remind ourselves, that one should be extremely careful when quoting something from the Messenger of Allah (saws), and attribute to his blessed name nothing except what is the confirmed truth….for whatever he (saws) said, or did, or allowed is law and an example for the believers until the Day of Judgment. If one invents something from themselves and attributes that falsehood to the Noble Prophet (saws), they will have a grievous penalty indeed!
Well in that case the statements of 'Ali as recorded in the Nahj-ul-Balaghah are guilty of interpolating ahadith, as well as saying things contrary to hadith?

As I said, I am aware of conflicting hadith, but the point is that in psychophysical prescriptions there is a gradation in which this is reconciled. The point is to create an agreement on the gradient and the ideals and values. Agreement can open many doors.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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Carl-> it is very simple , Hadith's, suras, Ayat's are given importance by those using Extremism interpretation according to their interests. I do not see a large enough constituency within Islam to agree with Hamza Yusuf.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by Haresh »

London Metropolitan University mulls alcohol ban for 'conservative Muslim students'


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/un ... dents.html
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by arun »

Elderly 80 year old man acquitted of the charge of blasphemy is killed by a Mohammadden cleric who was also the complainant in the blasphemy case in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan:

Blasphemy accuser kills man after police drop charges
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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His last words: Butt I am innocent :mrgreen: In all seriousness, this pathetic excuse of a country needs to Balkanized ASAP. People this devoid of logic and reason cannot be allowed to possess nukes. De-nuking will be made easier once Humpty Dumpty is broken into pieces.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/1 ... 26721.html
Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Mass Killer, Trial Begins
The 33-year-old Norwegian was found insane in one examination that recommended committing him to compulsory psychiatric care, while a second assessment found him mentally competent to be sent to prison. It's up to the judges in Oslo's district court to decide which diagnosis they find most believable.If deemed mentally competent, he would face a maximum prison sentence of 21 years or an alternate custody arrangement under which the sentence is prolonged for as long as an inmate is deemed a danger to society.Those who survived the shooting massacre are bracing for the horror to return during the trial."I do not know how I will react, I do not think you can prepare for it," said Stine Renate Haaheim, a 27-year-old Labor Party lawmaker who survived the Utoya massacre by swimming away from the island.Haaheim said she is concerned that Breivik will use the intense media focus during the trial to draw attention to his extremist views. Although she is curious about what snapped inside Breivik to turn him into a mass killer, she said "I don't think it will give any meaning to what has happened."Police will seal off streets around the court building, where journalists, survivors and relatives of victims can watch the proceedings in a 200-seat courtroom built specifically for the trial. Thick glass partitions have been put up to separate victims and their families from the defendant.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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Thailand’s Buddhists Take Up Arms Against Insurgency
Apr 16, 2012 12:00 AM EDT
A deadly Thai insurgency has Buddhists scrambling for guns.

A few hours’ drive from the white-sand beaches of Phuket—one of the world’s top tourist destinations—a deadly insurgency is terrorizing Thailand’s south. The separatist movement, made up of mostly ethnic-Malay Muslims, roils the region with daily threats of sectarian violence and has prompted many Buddhist villagers, and even some monks, to take up arms in self-defense. A series of coordinated bombings across two provinces on March 31 alone left 14 dead and hundreds injured.

The conflict has been gaining steam over the past eight years, even as the international community pays little attention. Since 2004, drive-by shootings, IED bombings, and point-blank assassinations have claimed some 5,000 lives in the country’s three restive southernmost provinces that border Malaysia, making the insurgency one of the world’s deadliest.

The insurgent groups rally around the belief that the provinces—where ethnic Malay Muslims are the majority—should be independent of Thailand, where more than 90 percent of the rest of the population is Buddhist. The insurgents’ preferred targets are Buddhists, especially those in the security forces or government, though they also kill fellow Muslims accused of not aligning with the separatist cause. They claim to have cells in 90 percent of southern villages; the boast, say security experts, is legitimate.

Even as a force of some 60,000 soldiers and police patrol the area, the insurgents have succeeded in spreading their network across the disputed territory, cultivating an atmosphere of perpetual insecurity for Buddhist communities living there. “First Muslim people came to our village and asked to buy our land,” says Suphorn Nison, a soft-spoken Buddhist in his mid-40s. “But they became less diplomatic when Buddhist people declined to leave.” The following month, Nison says, two men entered a convenience store operated by Nison’s father and executed him with two shots to his head. Nison claims the gunmen were Muslim and intended to send a stern message. Most Buddhists in his village left, but those who stayed, including Nison, formed a neighborhood-security force.

That was in 2006. Today such community-defense units are ubiquitous in Thailand’s south. Nison carries a revolver with him at all times. Many other Buddhists have also armed themselves, including a demure 38-year-old teacher, an acquaintance of Nison’s, who prefers a light Glock .22. While village-defense forces, or Chor Ror Bor, also operate in Muslim communities, they are often given fewer and inferior weapons than their Buddhist counterparts, and don’t receive the same level of support from the Thai Army and police, says Rungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit that studies ways to prevent conflicts.

Image
Religious strife between Muslims and Buddhists is tearing apart Thailand’s south., Q. Sakamaki / Redux

Other village-defense groups are explicitly restricted to Buddhists—chief among them, the Or Ror Bor, a system initiated by Thailand’s queen. During a trip south in 2005, two members of her security entourage were gunned down by separatists. She urged Buddhists in the region to remain on their lands and take weapons training. The queen also initiated land grants to encourage Buddhists from other parts of the country to move south.

Amid the violence, security measures have also transformed Buddhist temples. Many government troops in the deep south are based on the sprawling, walled-in temple grounds. Soldiers protect monks and worshippers from insurgent attacks, while benefiting from the monasteries’ existing infrastructure. Buddhist insecurity has even spawned soldier monks—new Army recruits who are pulled aside by superiors and offered a chance to become ordained monks so that they can eventually move to monasteries in the contested provinces and serve as hybrid servants of the state, according to U.S. academic Michael Jerryson. He has dedicated months of field research to the phenomenon, which he says was conceived by the queen.

Monks interviewed in the region today are uncomfortable discussing the soldier-monk practice, which they say has been discontinued. But many of the state’s security measures in the deep south are still channeled through Buddhists and Buddhist spaces, an approach that many analysts say has exacerbated sectarian divisions. “We’ve been saying it’s problematic. It’s like you’re arming people from one religion against another,” says the Crisis Group’s Chalermsripinyorat. Jerryson makes a bolder claim: official policies have generated a Buddhist militant movement in its own right. “International and Thai analysts largely overlook the Buddhists’ call to arms when they attempt to explain the spikes of violence in the war-torn region,” Jerryson writes in his book Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand, published last year. Groups such as Amnesty International have documented cases of soldiers bringing suspected insurgents to temple-housed bases to interrogate, torture, and even execute them. And Chor Ror Bor units have been suspected of engaging in vigilante justice.

Abdul Khodet Daman, a 46-year-old Malay Muslim rubber tapper in the southern province of Yala, believes he’s a victim of the sort of Buddhist militancy identified by Jerryson. He says that he was attacked by a man in an Army uniform, who shot him in the neck in a rampage last year. Four were killed in the attack and 16 were injured, including Daman. He believes the suspect—a 25-year-old soldier alleged to have been motivated by the murder of his brother—was abetted by a Chor Ror Bor unit in an adjacent village, which includes a number of new residents who immigrated as part of the queen’s land-grant program.

For others, such incidents obscure an equally harsh reality: the insurgency has put the region’s Buddhists on the defensive, with no end to the violence in sight. HuaHui, a long-bearded villager, exemplifies the kind of self-appointed power that the militia system offers Buddhists. At the entrance to his restaurant, he sits behind a makeshift bunker, holding an M-15 assault rifle. He keeps a cache of weapons on hand, along with special bullets designed to overcome “the voodoo of insurgents.” He’s been the target of drive-by shootings and bomb attacks more than a dozen times, he says. In the latest incident, “a month ago gunfire struck guests.” HuaHui sometimes patrols his district in a pickup truck, paying visits to friends—both Muslim and Buddhist—and making his presence felt to those he suspects of being on the “wrong side.” He visited a group of Chor Ror Bor in a nearby village who said the hordes of Army and police are not enough to secure the area. Later that evening, cars passing along the entry road to the village were struck by IEDs and gunfire.

Srisompob Jitpiromsri, the head of Deep South Watch, a Pattani-based group that tracks the area’s sectarian violence, says temple defenses and village militias serve a legitimate defensive purpose. But, he says, they also create backlash by helping insurgents convince Malay Muslim communities that Buddhists and the Thai state are fundamentally aligned against them.

His concern is catching on among some monks in the area. The abbot of one southern village recently asked soldiers stationed inside his temple to relocate. “It affected our image. Buddhism is a peaceful religion, and a temple must remain a peaceful place.” Analysts say the military commander in charge of operations in the deep south plans to shift troops out of temples and schools as part of a broader attempt to demilitarize the region’s public spaces. But, facing shadowy and omnipresent insurgents who are increasingly brazen in their methods, Buddhist communities may be less likely to move away from firepower. The consequences of their position, worries Jitpiromsri, might be only that they will be forced to double down on it. “Die-hard is their mentality.”

Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Brendan Brady reports from across Asia on diplomacy, human rights, religion, business, and environmental issues.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... gency.html
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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UQ Islamism's pizza effect, served on a crust of denial:
Suspended British Lord Denies Offering a Bounty for Obama and Bush
Scandal has once again landed Lord Nazir Ahmed, a British Labour peer, into the hotseat. According to Pakistan’s Express Tribune, Ahmed was speaking at a business reception in Haripur on April 15 when he mentioned the bounty posted by the U.S. government on Hafiz Saeed, a notorious Pakistani extremist. Reportedly, Pakistani-born Lord Ahmed then issued a “bounty” of his own, this time for the capture of the current and former Presidents of the United States. Reports the Tribune:

“If the US can announce a reward of $10 million for the captor of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of 10 million pounds on President Obama and his predecessor George Bush,” Lord Nazir said, adding that he would arrange the bounty at any cost even if he was left with the option of selling all his personal assets, including his house.
Reacting swiftly to the Tribune‘s report, Ahmed denied having made such a remark, telling the Press Association, “I never said those words. I did not offer a bounty.” According to Ahmed, his statements had been along a more tempered line and had only concerned the former U.S. president. “I said that there have been war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and those people who have got strong allegations against them — George W. Bush and Tony Blair — have been involved in illegal wars and should be brought to justice.”
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

Post by anupmisra »

Muslims demand separate identity in new constitution
Our protest will end only after achieving our goals
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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anupmisra wrote:Muslims demand separate identity in new constitution
Our protest will end only after achieving our goals
This increasing settlement and activity in Nepal is something you hear even amongst excited semi-literate Pakis.
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Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis

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Anders Breivik's lawyers will be showcasing an interesting set of witnesses
Breivik's defence team has called 29 witnesses to argue his sanity, aiming to prove Breivik's views on multiculturalism are shared by many others and are not the result of mental illness.

His proposed witnesses include Mullah Krekar, the founder of Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, who was recently jailed in Norway for making death threats, and "Fjordman", a right-wing blogger who influenced Breivik.
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