Re: Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis
Posted: 18 Apr 2014 19:00
Can be posted on multiple threads:
UK: Multiculturalism vs. Islamism
UK: Multiculturalism vs. Islamism
...Majeed, like a large number of British Muslims, was not an Arabic speaker. He was of Pakistani heritage. About 70% of British Muslims are, in fact, South Asian. A mere 6.6% are believed to be of Arab descent. And very few British Muslims can actually speak Arabic.
...British Muslims, Beg continued, have rejected "their parents' cultural understanding of Islam as a religion. British-Pakistani Muslims have become Muslims first, and are losing patience with the Pakistani practice of the religion embedded in Sufi traditions."
...The Indian academic Baladas Ghoshal blames the "Wahhabi creed" of Saudi Arabia, which, he claims, has attempted to purge South Asian Islam of its cultural practises and emblems, and has instead imposed a "pure and ideal form of Islam to be followed by Muslims all over the world."
Muslims of Assam:...Over the past decades, since Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have distributed vast amounts of money to non-profit groups and schools run by South Asian Islamist movements, Jamaat-e-Islami{Since when is this group has become Indian as well to be called "South Asian"?}, for example, set about purging Pakistani and Bengali Muslims of their cultural ideas. The Muslim writer Sazzad Hussain observed the consequences of Islamist-led homogenization of his culture in the Indian state of Assam:
Read more from the link above"The Islamist fundamentalist has one very distinctive characteristic—the denial of modern nation-state identity of Muslims to form a uniformed 'Islamic' identity at the cost of local tradition and cultural practices. … These days the Muslims of Assam are not identified as Assamese Muslims or Muslim of East Bengali descent. Instead they are merely homogenized as 'Muslims' … The use of Burqa and Hijab are alarmingly rising among the Muslim women in Assam. The ankle length Thaub, a Bedouin male dress and the red and white chequered headgear Kaffaiah are now in fashion for many Mollahs and Maulvis [clerics] and Madrassa students in Assam. It has reached to such an extent that this red-white or green-white chequered Kaffaiah is now replacing the Phoolam Gamocha, the symbol of Assamese culture…"