Islam and Pluralism *Tuesday, 28 Jul 2009* ‘Love in Jihad’ – Myth or Reality?<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1576>
Are Muslim boys luring Hindu girls to love and marriage in order to convert them to Islam deliberately, on purpose, as part of a Jihad, as communal and divisive elements in India are propagating? Prominent Delhi-based Urdu columnist *Maulana Nadeemul Wajidee* looks at the issue, in the process revealing his own mindset and outlook, indeed a worldview widely prevalent in our Mullah class – no introspection, merely blaming others, contempt for religions brought to the world by prophets preceding Prophet Mohammad - respecting whom equally as our own Prophet is an essential, inalienable part of our Faith. I am particularly offended by the fact that Maulana Saheb shows no regard for the sentiments of our *ahl-e-kitab *brethren in India: he seeks God’s protection from the Satan by saying *Naooz billah* before relating the fact that some Muslim boys and indeed girls too are converting to Hinduism for love. Maulana Saheb also reveals total insensitivity to the emotion of love. For his class of maulanas, women are nothing more than child-bearing machines, or at best, an object of occasional lust. Indeed he says so in so many words in this article reproduced below (Translated by* Syed Raihan Ahmad Nezami)*. How can he possibly understand that love is the highest virtue a human can aspire to? Love is Truth. Love is God. And love is universal. It is not for nothing that couples in love are prepared to sacrifice their all for love. And they do. Everywhere in the world and in all ages. Only today I read the story of teenager Afsana and a Dalit boy Manoj, brutally killed in a Meerut village allegedly by Afsana’s brothers, with the connivance of the entire village and support of probably the majority of our countrymen of all faiths. Of course, no Muslim is falling in love or luring Hindu girls to love and marriage and conversion as part of a Jihad or any other conspiracy. The very idea is preposterous. But, those who don’t want to see India prosper would not let go of any opportunity to divide the country. The Maulana may be right in seeking to dispel the notion, even though the idea is too ludicrous to be given such serious notice. However, the sooner our Maulanas learn to see Islam as just one of the many religions in the world brought to the world by tens of thousands of prophets or messengers of God in every part of the world, as the Holy Quran informs us, the better. According to Quranic teachings, we Muslims have no distinction over other religious communities. The only factor that could have given us distinction– taqwa (piety) – is present in us in more or less the same measure as in other communities. So why should we feel superior in the eyes of God than other religious communities? Islam-supremacism is not only untenable and unsustainable from the teachings of Islam itself; this is also the cause of many of our woes. Indeed feeling and even acting superior is proof that we are inferior beings in the eyes of God. No pious person can have contempt for other creations of God and even consider them lesser beings. Remeber *Hoqooqul Ibad *is more important in Islam than even*Hoqooqullah. * *Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam* More...<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1576> Debate *Asad Farooqui responds to Sultan Shahin’s plea of forgiveness on Babri mosque dispute<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1574> * Mr. Sultan Shahin has made an excellent suggestion to the Indian Muslims on the late Babri Masjid. While I support his suggestion of taking the spiritual path of forgiveness, I must express some reservations that I have. Mr. Shahin is apparently a very highly spiritually evolved Muslim. But he doesn’t seem to have his feet firmly on the ground. *Sultan Shahin on Babri mosque dispute: A spiritual response<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1559> * http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1559 *Babri Masjid: Opportunity for Muslims *<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1514> by Sultan Shahin http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1514 *We adopted the practice of outsourcing of religion 14 centuries ago, something that all other religions used to follow before us and Islam had come to finish off. * 1 Comments More...<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1574> Current affairs *A Fascinating Shift in the Way India Relates To Pakistan<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1572> * *Sharm El-Sheikh Joint Declaration May Be Manmohan Singh’s Big Gamble on India-Pakistan Relations* It may be early days yet, but events of the past two weeks point towards a fascinating shift in the way India relates to Pakistan, by de-hyphenating its own policy towards the US and others engaged in Project Pakistan. Manmohan Singh’s government has now announced India’s intention to break away from a Pakistan-centric view of its Pakistan policy and join this larger project, thereby globalising its Pakistan strategy. The US and India, therefore, for the first time in their engagement, are talking less of Pakistan’s compliance on one incident or the other, but on its very future. There are risks, particularly in a situation where your friends (the US) could be as unpredictable as your adversaries. But Manmohan Singh has decided to lead his troops out of the trenches, says *Shekhar Gupta, *editor-in-chief of the Indian Express, New Delhi, one of the most insightful observers of Indian foreign policy among Indian opinion makers. More...<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1572> Islamic Sharia Laws *Putting India’s Muslim Personal Law in Perspective<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1573> * *Muslim Personal Law is not tantamount to shari’a* Secondly, as the great Indian jurist *A. A. A. Fyzee* explained in 1963, MPL is not tantamount to *shari’a* because so many dimensions of law from the colonial period on, including criminal law and the all-important law of precedent and procedure, are secularly defined. In a headline-grabbing alleged rape by her father-in-law of a poor Muslim country woman named Imrana two years back, there was considerable discussion of MPL, even an ill-informed denunciation of it in *The New York Times* by the acclaimed writer Salman Rushdie<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/opinion/10rushdie.html>, though MPL was in no way at all involved. What was at stake was a *fatwa<http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2005/20050706b.htm#copy_fatwa> * (advising the woman to sever her current marriage)<http://www.milligazette.com/dailyupdate/2005/20050706b.htm>, which was completely ignored. -- *Barbara Metcalf**, **Professor of History and Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.*** More.<http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1573> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Asalam o Alaikum, You Are Receiving This Message, Because You Are A Member Of FOCUS ON ISLAM, A Google Group [..:: The Best Group For Nice Islamic Mails ::..] \/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<<<<>>>>\/<>\/ You can Post Your Comments and Suggestions to Me [Moderator of this Group] on this email address: [email protected] To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.google.com/group/focusonislam/ To post messages/mails to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Please forward our Mails to Your friends, and convence them to join our Group. 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