An irreverent Australian's irreverent conversion to Islam that is never the less most inspiring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-IuJL8HgvM

An irreverent Australian's irreverent conversion to Islam that is never the less most inspiring.

Have you given your zakat or sadaqah yet?

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One-nation Theory by Amulya Ganguli - DNA Mumbai daily

http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/main-article_one-nation-theory_1288289


Home > Opinion > Main Article

One-nation theory

Amulya Ganguli

Monday, September 7, 2009 20:09 IST

The controversy over Jaswant Singh's book has seen the revival of the debate on Partition. What is curious, however, is the support which the saffron camp has extended to something which it earlier condemned as the vivisection of the motherland.

This transition from the earlier yearnings for Akhand Bharat to the acceptance of the reality of a divided India is a new feature of Hindutva politics.It can perhaps be traced to the observations of Girilal Jain, a former editor of The Times of India in his book, The Hindu Phenomenon, where he said that Jinnah "was the greatest benefactor of Hindus in modern times if he was not a Hindu in disguise. That has been my way of saying that Partition was the best thing that could have happened for Hindus ... because without it they could not have produced even a workable Constitution, not to speak of a viable economic and democratic political order".

In a recent interview, Arun Shourie said that "I have come to realise that Girilal Jain was the one who was right" for he argued that if there was no Partition "we would have been bullied and thrashed and swamped by Islamic fundamentalists". Similar views were expressed by a former Union home secretary, Madhav Godbole, in The Holocaust of Indian Partition, where he said that undivided India would have presented "a frightening picture of a country torn asunder by internal dissension, political instability and social and communal tension".

There are at least three factors behind such doomsday predictions. One is a dislike of Muslims, which is undeniably there among sections of Hindus. It was (and apparently still is) a relief to them, therefore, to get rid of the mlechhas. The second factor, which reinforces this sense of animosity, is the dread of the unknown alien with whom there is very little social interaction. And the third is a strange inferiority complex which is evident in the apprehension of being "swamped" by Islamists.

This fear of the Muslims may have increased because of the upsurge of militant fundamentalists in the Af-Pak region. An occasional contributor to a newspaper had wondered, therefore, how a united India could have dealt with the turmoil near the Durand line. He was happy that the Radcliffe line had been drawn.

What is strange about these attitudes is the cursory dismissal of the fact that Hindus and Muslims had lived together in the subcontinent for 12 centuries before 1947 and in divided India for another 60 years after that. Although the saffron brotherhood likes to project the earlier centuries as a period of endless conflict between the two communities, such a view fails to explain the development of the composite culture which wouldn't have been possible in the absence of close and harmonious intermingling.

As historian Akhilesh Mithal pointed out, dhrupad, khayal, thumri and ghazal in the world of music could not have evolved without decades of friendly interaction. Nor would India have witnessed the architectural achievements of the Taj Mahal or its cuisine being enriched by the culinary innovations of what has come to be known as Mughlai food.

The cultural and literary efflorescence of Tulsidas, Surdas, Meera, Mir Taqi Mir, Ghalib and others is also a product of this amicable cohabitation. None of these point to being bullied or swamped.

Instead, Islam itself acquired a gentle face. As the Pakistani historian, Akbar S Ahmed, said, the subcontinental model of sulahkul or peace with all became a feature of Islam, whose most shining example was the dargah of Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer.

"Can you imagine", he said," a saint living in Rajasthan in the middle ages surrounded by Hindus and propagating peace and harmony through Islam?"The political face of this model could be seen in the Unionist Party of Punjab, which the Pakistani historian, Ayesha Jalal, described as "a cross-communal alliance of Muslim, Hindu and Sikh agricultural interests" led by the two towering regional figures, Fazl-i-Hussain and Chaudhury Chhotu Ram.

Hussain was invited by Jinnah to preside over the Muslim League in 1936 with the words that "no one can give a better lead to the Mussalmans of India than yourself".

Fazlul Huq of Bengal's Krishak Praja Party was another such figure. Neither of them favoured Pakistan because the Muslims were in a majority in their provinces any way. Hussain's successor, Khizar Hayat Khan Tiwana, told Jinnah, therefore, to "keep his finger out of the Punjab pie" while describing the idea of Pakistan as "nonsense".

Yet these men are forgotten today along with their secular compatriot Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan while Jinnah's Direct Action is remembered to justify the break-up in 1947.

Had there been no Partition, it is the likes of Husain and Frontier Gandhi, not to mention Nehru and Gandhi, who would have ensured the continuance of communal togetherness of the last 1,200 years without any side swamping the other.

The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator

Spirit of Islam v/s Spirit of Indian Constitution

Monday, September 07, 2009

Comments posted on Indian Express website over article: Personal law, social myths by Dr. Tahir Mahmood

Dr. Tahir Mahmood had opted to figure out the true spirit of Islam in relation to monogamy and/or bigamy while advising Law Commission. One hopes he should have had the chutzpah at the same time to advise his own colleagues on the Law Commission about the true spirit of India's constitution, where state undertakes to safeguard the constitutional right to freedom of religion; so that the judiciary, a part of state, would not keep on testing the limits of their relentless provocation to Muslims on one pretext or another.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

www.GhulamMuhammed.Blogspot.com

PS:Dr. Mahmood writes:"The massive reform of Muslim law in the Muslim countries may have no persuasive value for religious circles in India, but for the Indian judiciary it has."

It would appear that in a globalised world, while reforms in Muslim countries, should be of academic interest to Indian Judiciary; --- they should however not lose sight of the fact that conditions in Muslim countries are not as conducive to democratic and secular life, as it is in India.

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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/personal-law-social-myths/513767/

Personal law, social myths

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Tahir MahmoodTags : tahirmahmood, columnPosted: Monday , Sep 07, 2009 at 0220 hrs

The Supreme Court’s celebrated Shah Bano judgment of 1985 cited Mohammad Iqbal’s observation: “The question which is likely to confront Muslim countries in the near future is whether the law of Islam is capable of evolution — a question which will require great intellectual effort and is sure to be answered in the affirmative.” Soon after Iqbal’s demise the question did confront the newly established nation-states of the Middle East and, as expected by India’s far-sighted poet-philosopher, was answered in the affirmative. Since 1969, I have been researching and writing on the reforms which country after country in the Muslim world has introduced into family law. Writing in the Indian Express recently, Javed Anand discussed that work to question why, ignoring religious sensitivities, the Law Commission of India failed to recommend the introduction of similar measures in India.

The oversensitivity of the Muslims of India in respect of their personal law is a social reality — and so is official consciousness of it. Muslim religious circles here have been incessantly intolerant to codification or reform; and the powers-that-be are always considerate to this intolerance. The Terms of Reference of the Law Commission are, each time it is reconstituted, set by the government — and never have these included any aspect of Muslim law. Of course, it can take up any important legal issue suo motu, but none of the 17 Commissions set up since 1955 had ever recommended any reforms in Muslim law. No consultation with the Commission was made before enacting any law for the Muslims, including the infamous maintenance law enacted for Muslim divorcees in the aftermath of the 1985 Shah Bano case and the 1995 Wakf Act. The Supreme Court’s recommendation in the 1995 Sarla Mudgal case that the issue of reform of minorities’ personal laws should be entrusted to the Law Commission (which in turn should interact with the Minorities Commission) remains ineffective.

Mani Shankar Aiyer, commenting on the issue in his 2004 book Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist wondered “What faith will the minorities have in the pronouncements of an all-Hindu Law Commission?” But the induction of a Muslim member in the 18th Law Commission in 2007 did not work either. Experience soon showed that on the question of perpetuating their ‘sacrosanct’ personal law — howsoever repugnant to the spirit of Islam its present practice may be — the community can disown even their most trusted well-wishers.

As in many family-law matters, Muslims are being inexplicably governed by outdated local customs repugnant to Islamic law, a report was drafted to recommend that — on the pattern of the scope of all other community-specific family laws of India — all Muslims everywhere in the country should, in family-law matters, be governed by Muslim law. The innocuous move was shouted down by religious leaders as a “conspiracy to pave the way for a uniform civil code.” The report had to be shelved.

The bigamy report addressed only the issue of sham conversions to Islam by unscrupulous non-Muslim men in a bid to escape anti-bigamy provisions of modern Hindu law. Since 1995, the Supreme Court has outlawed this practice: even by changing religion a married Hindu could not marry again without getting his first marriage dissolved. This report simply suggested that the judge-made law on the point, still being widely violated, be written by an amendment into the Hindu Marriage Act. It made no recommendation for amending Muslim law on bigamy — if it had, like the first report, this one too would have gone to the dustbin. We were not “terrified” by anything; we did say in our report that bigamy in its present form was against the spirit of Islam. We knew well that this realistic observation would create a storm in a teacup, and it did.

This emanates from certain myths: that what passes as ‘Muslim personal law’ here is the true Islamic law word for word; that blind adherence to it is covered by the right to religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. Every exposition of the reality that Muslim law is applicable in India not as part of Islamic faith but as part of the Indian statute-book, and that the Constitution does in no way protect it, goes unheeded.

Thus any legislative reform or codification of Muslim law in this country is a distant dream. This state of affairs is of course not confined to India. In Bangladesh and Pakistan, Hindu law is stagnating where it stood on 15th August 1947 — its total overhaul in India remains foreign to those countries.

In this situation the judiciary has an important role to play. In some recent cases the courts have made admirable efforts to read principles of Muslim law in their correct perspective. Religious circles see these rulings as mudakhalat fid-din or interference in religion. That perception might continue, but so must the on-going process of judicial restoration of true Islamic law. The massive reform of Muslim law in the Muslim countries may have no persuasive value for religious circles in India, but for the Indian judiciary it has.

The author is the Chairman of Amity University’s Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and member of the 18th Law Commission

Court Allows Lawsuit Against Ashcroft - By Carrie Johnson - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR2009090403567.html

Court Allows Lawsuit Against Ashcroft

Former Official's Bid for Immunity In Ex-Detainee's Case Is Rejected

By Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer 
Saturday, September 5, 2009

A Muslim man who was detained for weeks as a material witness in a terrorism case can sue former attorney general John D. Ashcroft, a federal appeals court in California ruled Friday as it rejected a bid for absolute legal immunity by the onetime Cabinet official.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit gave a green light to the case filed by Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen who was taken into custody at a ticket counter at Washington Dulles International Airport in 2003, while he was on his way to Saudi Arabia to study Islamic law and Arabic.

At the heart of the lawsuit is a strategy launched by the Justice Department and the FBI after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Ashcroft, the attorney general at the time, asserted that authorities would take "suspected terrorists off the street" and engage in "aggressive detention of lawbreakers and material witnesses" to disrupt possible al-Qaeda plots. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III cited al-Kidd's detention in testimony to Congress about the bureau's success in protecting national security.

Al-Kidd and his attorneys argued that Ashcroft knew or should have known that the material witness statute was being used in a sweeping and abusive manner. Ashcroft, who is being defended by the Justice Department, maintained that the case should be dismissed because he had no personal involvement in al-Kidd's detention. He also argued that as the nation's chief law enforcement officer at the time, he enjoyed broad protection from lawsuits.

But Judges Milan D. Smith Jr. and David R. Thompson disagreed, writing that Ashcroft was not entitled to absolute legal immunity and that authorities had detained al-Kidd in part to conduct an investigation of his activities, without probable cause. Judge Carlos T. Bea wrote a partial dissent. All three judges were appointed by Republican presidents.

Al-Kidd, a Muslim convert who had been a standout running back on the University of Idaho football team, was confined in a high-security cell lit 24 hours a day, according to the opinion. He was strip-searched and transported, in shackles, across three states for 16 days before a court ordered his release. Authorities could not offer evidence of criminal wrongdoing by al-Kidd, and he never testified in a court proceeding.

For more than 15 months after his release, al-Kidd was forced to live with his parents-in-law in Nevada, curtail his travel and report to a probation officer. Al-Kidd lost his job with a government contractor after being denied a security clearance. Since his arrest, he has separated from his wife, suffered emotional trauma and been unable to hold a steady job, the judges wrote.

At the time, authorities said they wanted al-Kidd to testify in connection with a visa fraud case against Sami Omar al-Hussayen. Al-Hussayen ultimately was acquitted of charges that he provided material support to terrorists. Other charges against him were dismissed after a jury failed to reach agreement.

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller declined to comment on the al-Kidd ruling. A spokesman for Ashcroft said, "We will review the decision."

Earlier this year, a district court judge in California allowed a detainee's lawsuit against former Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo to go forward. The suit accused Woo of violating the detainee's constitutional rights by drafting memos that blessed harsh interrogation tactics. The case is being appealed.

The Supreme Court in May rejected a case by another detainee, Javaid Iqbal, who was part of a large-scale roundup of Muslim men on immigration charges throughout the United States after the Sept. 11. attacks. Iqbal had tried to sue Ashcroft and Mueller, alleging discrimination on the basis of race and religion, but the high court ruled that he could not produce sufficient evidence tying the government officials to the actions.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, said the al-Kidd ruling is "an enormous decision" that could help advocates finally understand how many Muslims were rounded up using material witness warrants.

The court's majority opinion comes as senior officials in the Obama administration and Congress debate whether terrorism suspects can be subject to preventive detentions, without criminal charges, as a national security strategy.

The opinion bemoaned that some "confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions . . . because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world. We find this to be repugnant."

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Quit Afghanistan - By Ghulam Muhammed

Friday, September 04, 2009

QUIT AFGHANISTAN

Today BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner has gone record with a clear admission that US/NATO operations in Afghanistan on Taliban and Afghan civilians has nothing directly or indirectly relates to US/NATO’s avowed claim to be fighting Al-Qaeda terrorism in Afghanistan. None of the terror attacks in the West that Frank Gardner rattles off in his BBC intervention, according to him, has any remote relations with Taliban in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Daily aerial bombings are a serial war- crime murders committed against civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda is not necessarily based in these areas. They can operate from Yemen, Somalia and in future from North Africa. With each incident of wanton massacre of civilians, Obama, Gordon Brown and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen instantly go on TV and fool their people back home, that their bloody mission in Afghanistan is necessary to protect homeland from terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is patent lies. They cannot fool all the people all the time. Time has come for US/UK/NATO to quit Afghanistan forthwith, without committing more and more war crimes daily on the innocent hapless people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

NATO forces yesterday shot an oil tanker, hijacked by Taliban in Kunduz province. The tanker was stuck while crossing a river and Taliban had asked local people to empty the tanker, by taking away the fuel for their private use. NATO did not find it necessary to find out if the crowd collected around the hijacked tanker was that of civilians or Taliban. Reconnaissance can easily make out. However, NATO forces directly undermined clear instructions from the High Command and in an enraged vindictive action blew up the tanker. The action resulted in over 90 killed. BBC in its first report clearly mentioned that all were civilians. But the NATO Chief later fined it convenient to resort to blatantly lie and say that all killed were Taliban. An enquiry is promised. But all such enquiries are self-serving, bending backwards to prove the forces to be not guilty. However, the civilians in these cannot be fooled. This carnage is going on by the hour and the world seems to be sanitized to one of the most blatant and wanton criminal war inflicted on a UN member country.

Though India at some level seems to be involved in the conspiracy being played out in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Indian people are not fully taken into any confidence, if the criminal acts have any legal basis. Indian government should gather up moral courage and come out with open notice to the US and NATO forces to QUIT AFGHANISTAN. A moral India owes it to its people to oppose such horrendous carnage in its neighbourhood. Needless to say, the fire could spread into India's own territory, in one form or other.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

www.GhulamMuhammed.Blogspot.com