Islam and Pluralism India's Muslim Taliban join Hindu Taliban to oppose Valentine's Day Muslims forbidden from participating in Valentine's Day celebration No love lost: Religious police see red _ or not _ as Valentine's ban takes over Saudi Arabia by DONNA ABU
On Valentine's Day by Fouzia Khan 3 Comments More. http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1192 Radical Islamism & Jihad Islam Attracting Many Survivors of Rwanda Genocide Jihad Is Taught as 'Struggle to Heal' RUHENGERI, Rwanda -- The villagers with their forest green head wraps and forest green Korans arrived at the mosque on a rainy Sunday afternoon for a lecture for new converts. There was one main topic: jihad. They found their seats and flipped to the right page. Hands flew in the air. People read passages aloud. And the word jihad -- holy struggle -- echoed again and again through the dark, leaky room. It wasn't the kind of jihad that has been in the news since Sept. 11, 2001. There were no references to Osama bin Laden, the World Trade Centre or suicide bombers. Instead there was only talk of April 6, 1994, the first day of the state-sponsored genocide in which ethnic Hutu extremists killed 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates. "We have our own jihad, and that is our war against ignorance between Hutu and Tutsi. It is our struggle to heal," said Saleh Habimana, the head mufti of Rwanda. "Our jihad is to start respecting each other and living as Rwandans and as Muslims." -- Emily Wax More... http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1193 Islam and Human Rights West Bengal is now ruled by CPM - Talibanist! Bengalis no longer enjoy the freedom of the age of Kabeer or Raheem or our Vedic ancestors It is outrageous that in this day and age a respected newspaper like the Statesman cannot even publish as innocuous an article as Johann Hari's "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?" It is being reproduced below courtesy Independent of London where it originally appeared. It seems some obscurantist Muslims had objection to it and so the Stalinist police arrested Mr. Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha, the editor and publisher of The Statesman, and curiously without provoking any debate or as far as I know even any coverage in secular democratic India's independent media. As you will see in the article below Johann Hari is very balanced and maintains equidistance from all major religions that he mentions. He makes a plea for freedom of expression. His main point is stated in the very first paragraph: "The right to criticize religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian." I am a religious person myself. But I don't see how anyone can be religious in the true sense of the term without having ever been skeptical about religion, without having been agnostic or even atheist for a time. No truly religious person can ever question the right of others to question religion. He would have the confidence to know that this que4stioning person will come to realize the value of religion in general, and maybe his religion too in course of time. He or she will see that as this fellow is questioning religion, he/she has the capacity to someday become religious. But of course those who follow their inherited religion are not going to see it this way. They are the inhabitants of the land of Jahiliya. Now tell me my Muslim brothers and sisters! Would there have been a religion called Islam in the world today if Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) had taken your view of his ancestral religion? Would we have had Islam in the world today if the Prophet had not questioned and rebelled against the religion of his family and clan and tribe? Indeed would we have had any religion, any science, any literature, any philosophy? All progress emanates from questioning established truths. However, this is no occasion for a discourse on progress. You cannot address followers of ancestral religions, followers of Abu Jahal, and discuss with them concepts of progress. You can just beat them in a war and then they will join you, as the Meccan followers of Abu Jahal joined Islam after their defeat. I don't know what the obscurantist Muslims of an enlightened city like Kolakata find objectionable in Johann Hari's article. Perhaps it is the following passage that has provoked their ire: "All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don't respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead. I don't respect the idea that we should follow a "Prophet" who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him. "I don't respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don't respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of "prejudice" or "ignorance", but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal. "When you demand "respect", you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade." Obviously Hari's idea about the Prophet's character is wrong, but it is based in large parts on the propaganda launched by Arab Muslims who want to justify their own pedophilic proclivities by announcing from rooftops even today that the Prophet married a girl of six and consummated his marriage. The kind of fatwas Saudi Wahhabi Ulema (religious scholars) give on the issue even today, some of which available on NewAgeIslam.com, is enough to convince any non-Muslim and indeed any Muslim that this is what the Prophet did. Please refer to the following stories: 1. Saudi Islam, misuse of Seerat-e-Nabwi allowed: No protection to young girls, some awful news stories Fifty-Something Saudi Refuses to Annul Marriage to his Eight-Year-Old Wife Father was 'swapping' her for a 13-year-old bride Dr. Ahmad Al-Mub'i, a Saudi Marriage Officiant: It Is Allowed to Marry a Girl at the Age of One, If Sex Is Postponed. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Whose Model We Follow, Married 'Aisha When She Was Six and Had Sex with Her When She Was Nine www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=815 2. Marrying 9 year old girls permissible in Islam, says Moroccan theologian: Muslims accuse him of "distorting" Islam www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=769 3. DID SAYYIDA AYESHA (ra) MARRY MUHAMMAD (P.B.U.H), THE PROPHET OF ISLAM, AT AGE 6? The books written 200-300 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), though seeking to provide a good deal of historical information about him, are not free from less than perfect and self-contradictory materials. These should not be taken as the final word for a Muslim. There is a Final Word for a Muslim and that is the Book of God, the Holy Qur'an—the book that defines the marriageable age for a man or woman when he or she attains soundness of judgment (Al-Qur'an 4:6). If the exalted prophet of Islam is a model for all-time mankind, if he followed the Qur'an all his life, if Allah stands witness to his rock-solid moral character, there is no way that he could have taken a 6-9 year old, immature young, playful girl as a responsible wife, argues Abdul H. Fauq. www.NewAgeIslam.Com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=817 The above article by Abdul H. Fauq presents a very different set of research and speculation, one that does not suit the Arab male chauvinists and paedophiles who call themselves Muslims and thus doesn't get propagated by the massive Wahhabi-controlled Islamic media around the world. As for Johann Hari's claim that the Prophet "ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him", it is patently wrong and cannot be presented in this way. The Prophet is an exemplar of patience and perseverance and forgiveness. His entire history is a testament to this. Look at Sulah–e-Hudaibiya, look at his general amnesty to the murderous Meccans after the victory over Mecca when he was in a position to order wholesale slaughter. As for the Jews, neutral observers have to understand that at that time the Prophet was fighting for his community and faith's very survival. The Jews first entered into an agreement with him and then when war came stabbed him in the back, expecting the far superior army of Meccans to decimate the ill-equipped and extremely weak Muslim army. But the reverse happened with the blessings and support of God, the only thing that could indeed have saved the Prophet, his army and Islam. Now the perfidious Jews had indeed to be taught a lesson as a warning to other tribes who were now entering into similar agreements with the Muslim community. Remember this was the act of a man who was literally fighting for his and his faith's survival. When he was victorious and in a position to order slaughter he ordered general amnesty even to war criminals who later killed his own family members and subverted Islam for good. Anyway, this rebuttal is not the point now. The point at stake now is Johann's Hari's right to express his views. Why indeed should he or anybody else be forced to respect religions in whose name so many slaughters and worse have taken place and are taking place now? If religions want to be respected, the religious should behave in a respectable fashion, should try and earn that respect, through exemplary conduct and debate, not force people to respect them. Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam More.. http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1190 -- Syed M. Asadullah -- Syed M. 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