The War within Islam *Wednesday, May 06 2009* Changing Muslim Psyche: Allah Hafiz vs. Khuda Hafiz <http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1383>
Ask them to feel grateful to God that you are not living in Pakistan where your mother would be asking you to pray at home and not go to mosques for fear of being blown up by suicide bombers; ask them to feel grateful that you are living in the only non-Muslim majority country in the world which allows you to organise your personal life in accordance with Muslim Personal Law; that your constitution guarantees you equal status; that no party can come to power at the Centre which has not got your votes: and you are immediately branded a Hindu agent. This is the condition of a community whose religion exhorts it to live with an attitude of gratitude even in the direst of circumstances, to start every prayer with Al-Hamd (Praising God). God's bounties are so many and so great that we will not finish recounting them even if we spend an entire lifetime doing that. Islam-supremacism, contempt for other religions, are our mantras. We forget that our scriptures ask us to revere equally as Prophet Mohammad all the 124,000 prophets that preceded him in all parts of the world. This is an essential requirement for the Islamic faith. Inner spirituality has been sucked out of our religion with the onset of Wahhabism in a big way. Under US protection, Saudi Arabia is spending tens of billions of dollars for the last 35 years in spreading a desiccated, arid, desert version of Islam, devoid of all spiritual values. The Islam to which we had been introduced in the sub-continent by our saints is dead and gone. People may still visit Sufi shrines, but the inclusiveness that it entailed is no longer there. -- *Sultan Shahin* 4 Comments More...<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1383> Radical Islamism & Jihad *For many Pakistani children, madrasas fill a void <http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1384>* *They are creating a widening pool of young minds that are sympathetic to militancy*…. education has never been a priority here, and even Pakistan’s current plan to double education spending next year might collapse as have past efforts, which were thwarted by sluggish bureaucracies, unstable governments and a lack of commitment by Pakistan’s governing elite to the poor. … But if the state has forgotten the children here, the mullahs have not. With public education in shambles, Pakistan’s poorest families have turned to madrasas, or Islamic schools, that feed and house the children while pushing a more militant brand of Islam than was traditional here. *The Islamic schools are also seen as employment opportunities.* “When someone doesn’t see a way ahead for himself, he builds a mosque and sits in it,” said Jan Sher, whose village in south-western Punjab, Shadan Lund, has become a militant stronghold, with madrasas now outnumbering public schools. Poverty has also helped expand enrolment in madrasas, which serve as a safety net by housing and feeding poor children. “How can someone who earns 200 rupees a day afford expenses for five children?” asked Hafeezur Rehman, a caretaker in the Jamia Sadiqqia Taleemul Quran madrasa in Multan, the main city in south Punjab. The school houses and feeds 73 boys from poor villages. Former President Pervez Musharraf tried to regulate the madrasas, offering financial incentives if they would add general subjects. But after taking the money, many refused to allow monitoring. “The madrasa reform project failed,” said Javed Ashraf Qazi, a retired general who served as education minister at the time. Suicide bombings were neither encouraged nor condemned. The ideology may be rigid, but it offers the promise of respect, a powerful draw for lower-class young men. -- *Sabrina Tavernise* More...<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1384> The War within Islam *Soul-searching among Muslims: Is the beard really so vital a part of our faith? <http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1382>* A recent Supreme Court Judgement reinforcing minority institutions’ right to formulate their own rules and expecting students to follow them if they wanted to study there has created a storm of protest from the Muslim community as it concerned a Muslim student’s demand to be allowed to keep his beard. This was irrational, as Muslims themselves constitute a minority and run their own institutions in which they formulate their own rules. Urdu Press was flooded with articles claiming, wrongly from all accounts, that a beard was as essential for a Muslim to have as it was for say, a Sikh. *New Age Islam’s Chennai-based columnist V. M. Khaleelur Rahman *looks at the issue from various perspectives. At one point, he describes the camaraderie that exists in students of minority institutions in Tamil Nadu: “In almost all minority institutions in Chennai, Muslim and Christian, nothing is imposed on the students belonging to other religions. For example, a head scarf is an indispensable part of the uniform in all Muslim schools but it is not made compulsory for non-Muslim girls. We have not seen any non-Muslim girl wearing a head scarf in any school here. In the same way in non-Muslim institutions belonging to Christian, Hindu or any other community in Tamil Nadu, there is nothing which can be branded as inimical to cultural or religious feelings of the Muslim community. In other words a good camaraderie exists among them here. We are proud of it. There are many Muslim educational institutions - primary schools, higher secondary schools, arts and science colleges, engineering colleges, etc. in places like Chennai, Vaniyambadi, Ambur, Melvisharam, Keelakarai, Trichy, Kayalpattinam, etc. where students belonging to all religious communities study understanding and respecting each other's sentiments.”** 3 Comments More.<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1382> -- Syed M. 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