www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1qPZm5WSFE

One of our younger members recites Chapter seven of The Holy Quran and gives its English translation.

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“It was perhaps 1901 or 1902. I was living in Qadian and probably The Review of Religions had already started. The Promised Messiah called a photographer to have his photograph taken for inclusion in his books. … I cannot remember if any other group photo was taken but what I do recall is that by his bidding my photograph was also taken…. This is an ordinary event, but the strange thing, or what we can call God’s work, is that in the photo on the left side there is a hand holding a book, upon which is written, Quran Sharif. Where did it come from? At that time no one had in mind translating the Holy Qur’an. Hazrat Miza Sahib had entertained this desire for long …”

The photo and quote are courtesy of ‘The Hope Bulletin’ (Vol. 6:7), edited by Akbar Ibn Abdullah.

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In a ruling on 31 January, the BBC Trust defended its decision to censor the word “Palestine” from a freestyle by rapper Mic Righteous on 1xtra in February last year. In the performance (above), he rapped:

“I still have the same beliefs
I can scream Free Palestine,
Die for my pride still pray for peace,
Still burn a fed for the brutality
They spread over the world.”

BBC production staff covered up the word “Palestine” with the sound of broken glass. The censored version was also aired in April. Responding to the original complaints, the BBC said that “Mic Righteous was expressing a political viewpoint which, if it had been aired in isolation, would have compromised impartiality.”

Yet its own guidelines make allowances for “individual expression” for “artists, writers and entertainers”, as long as services “reflect a broad range of the available perspectives over time”. The BBC argues that a late night music show was not the appropriate place to get into political debate as it was not obvious when these other views would be aired.

Amena Saleem, of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: ‘”In its correspondence with us, the BBC said the word Palestine isn’t offensive, but ‘implying that it is not free is the contentious issue’, and this is why the edit was made.”

But the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is a fact, not a statement of opinion. The UN Security Council classifies Israel as the “occupying force” in the West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, in upholding their decision, the BBC Trust has not addressed this key issue in the complaints. Consequently, nine complainants have said that their main point, that the BBC “demonstrated bias against Palestinians”, had been ignored.

At the time, the PSC made the point that the BBC did not ban the song “Free Nelson Mandela” in 1984, even though Mandela was considered to be a terrorist by many western governments.

The BBC Trust has decided it is not “proportionate or cost-effective” to proceed further with the complaint, but the original decision does not seem proportionate either. Indeed, had the BBC allowed the song to go through uncensored, it probably would not have been remarked upon (after all, it was two words, not a long political diatribe). As it is, this incident sends a very uncomfortable message.

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The programme will be broadcast at 12.30pm GMT as usual.

Programme*:
12:30 First Azan
         Individual prayers

12:45 Second Azan
         Khutba
         Second Arabic khutba

13:15 Salaat
          Dars
13:30 End of programme

To watch our live prayers and speech and be a part of the virtual mosque click on the link below.

Live Prayers
*All times are approximate.

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This eighty-fifth volume in Brill’s Handbook of Oriental Studies Series attempts to fulfill the long-standing need for an Arabic-English dictionary of Qur’anic usage. Adding an important resource for the study of the Qur’an, the Dictionary is distinguished by many features: It brings to English-speaking readership contextualized interpretations of the Qur’anic vocabulary through the works of classical scholars; it follows the Arabic root system, devoting one section to each of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet; roots are alphabetically arranged with special attention given to the classification of roots with geminated second and third radicals, which are classified unlike the tradition followed by by Western lexicographers such as Lane and Wehr (thus the root s-b-b appears after the root s-b-’ and not after it); cross references provide easy access to roots of certain foreign words which could be thought of as arising from more than one possible combination (e.g. A-z-r and a-z-r); an inventory of the basic concepts covered by the root provides a broad framework of what it encompasses; it recognizes that abstract derivatives in Arabic are derived from concrete ones, rather than the other way around (jamal, beauty, comes from jamal, camel, not the other way around); and it presents all morphological derivatives of a given root which are found in the Qur’an, along with their frequency.

By necessity, such a work has to base itself on existing source material. The authors chose the al-Mu’jam al-mufahras li afaz al-Qur’an al-Karim, the well-known concordance of Muhammad Fu’ad ‘abd al-BAqi, both for their dictionary entries as well as foi the frequency count. The glosses are based on Abdel Haleem’s The Qur’an–A New Translation with necessary changes.Other translations mentioned in the bibliography (under “English Sources”) are The Holy Qur’an: Arabic Text, English Translation and Commentary by Maulana Muhammad Ali, a follower of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadyan, who is considered an imposter by majority of Muslims;
The Message of the Quran by Muhammad Asad, whose rationalistic interpretations of the supra-rational of the Qur’an led him, among other things, to deny such fundamental tenets of Islam as the role played by angels and jinn and whose translation often chooses the far-fetched rather than familiar meanings of certain words; and the equally problematic An English Interpretation of the Holy Quraan by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, who reduced the Qur’anic concept of Jihad to striving against one’s inner evil and imposed imagery of Romantic poets onto Qur’anic vocabulary. These are clearly inappropriate choices for the English translations of the Qur’an to be used in a work which claims to be “based upon the interpretations by classical Qur’anic commentators of the contextualized occurrences of the finite vocabulary items used in the Qur’anic text” (xvi). The Dictionary has, however, managed to avoid some of the doctrinal problems which the choice of the aforementioned modernist translations of the Qur’an would have brought to it. There is, for instance, no trace of the Lahori Ahmadi creed in its gloss on Prophet Isa [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], no mention of his alleged death in Kashmir and the transference of the role of the messiah to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. In some cases, however, the reliance on these translations becomes apparent–for instance, the Dictionary takes the more obscure meaning of ibil (clouds) used by Muhammad Asad in his translation of Q. 88:17 as compared to the more generally held view that the Qur’an refers to camels.

It took the authors seven years to complete this work. In the course of their project they had to make certain difficult decisions, such as whether or not to include the so-called scientific interpretations in their work. Such decisions and the editorial parameters have been indicated in the “Introduction”. The Arabic text used in the Dictionary is clear though not elegant; due consideration has been given to properly transliterate words; and the work has received proper editorial care. Notwithstanding the reservations mentioned above, Arabic-English Dictionary of Quraanic Usage is an important contribution to Qur’anic scholarship and will provide an important resource for researchers and English-language scholars.

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A few days back a small headline in the Urdu daily Munsif (Hyderabad) caught my eye: “The Worst Attempt at the State Level to Declare the Qadianis Muslim.” The text went on to report on what the dignitaries of an organization called Majlis-iKhatm-i-Nabuwwat Trust, Andhra Pradesh had said in the way of denouncing the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh. However, only one sentence in the report running to 18 lines communicated any sense of what the alleged “attempt and conspiracy” was: “In the textbooks for high schools the Qadiani sect has been included in the account of the many sects among the Muslims.” Then I received a mailing that brought to my attention a long note by Sultan Shahin entitled “Muslim Juhala threaten Mayawati government over Ahmadiya issue.” ) It included the full text of an item published in Hamara Samaj (New Delhi; 25 August 2010) that provided the information I needed:

“It is to be noted that on page 30 of Samajik Vigyan of Class X, in the chapter titled “Ahamdiyya Andolan”, the sect has been linked to Muslims terming it as a reformist sect. Not only that, on page 29, in the essay titled “Muslim Andolan” an attempt has been made to present Muslims as divided into various sects as Wahabi Andolan( Movement), Deobandi Andolan and Aligarh Andolan. It is to be noted that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was born in mouza Qadian in Gurdaspur district of Punjab (India) in 1839. He claimed to be a prophet in 1899 and died in 1908.”

Clearly, the only questionable feature in the report is the use of “Andolan” for “sect.”

The report in Hamara Samaj included denunciations from the President of Jamiat-iUlema-i-Hind, Qari Syed Md Usman Mansurpuri, the General Secretary of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Maulana Nizamuddin, the General Secretary of the All
India Majlis-e-Mashawarat , Maulana Umeduzzaman Kairanvi, the Naib Imam of the Shia Jama Masjid, Delhi, and the Principal of Jamiat-al-Shaheed, Maulana Muhsin Taqvi (sic), and a few other similar notables. Most denunciations were of the same nature as that coming from Maulana Abdul Khalique Sambhali of Darul Ulum Deoband, who reportedly said, “The issue was an important religious one of the Muslims and no complacency would be tolerated over it.” The Maulana demanded that the UP government remove the reference in the book and “cleansed the book (committee) of Muslims who are enemies of Islam in the disguise of Muslims.” But the General Secretary of the Jama’at-i-Islami (Hind), Mujtaba Faruque, went many steps further in his reasoning. According the report in Hamara Samaj, he argued:

“the Qadiani sect is in fact a product of the Jews and the Christians. That the centre of the Ahmadiyyas is in Britain is clear testimony to this. He said that the UP government should realize that it was not wise to hurt the Muslims. He warned that they would be compelled to launch a movement if the essay was not expunged immediately.”

Apparently Mr. Mujtaba Faruque does not know or remember that Maulana Maududi sent his son to study and live in that most nefarious of the lands of the Christians and the Jews, namely the United States, and eventually came there himself for medical treatment that, sadly, did not suffice. I hope someone in the Minorities Commission would take notice of his inflammatory statement against all Jews and Christians.

Coming to the other notables “Our Lords”—that is what “Maulana” literally means— I would first like to request them to give up that title. I find it disturbing that they allow people to use for them the title that really should be used exclusively for the
Prophet Muhammad. They themselves use the expression “Sayyadna wa Maulana Muhammadin” many times in the prayers every day to refer to him. Don’t they think it is disrespectful that they should also be called ‘Maulana”? After all the common expression till the late 19th century was “Maulavi” (“My Lord’), which was considered good enough for people far more learned and deserving.

Next I would like to draw their attention to two books. The first is the autobiography of Maulavi Abdul Majid Dariabadi, whose name I am sure they all know and revere. As is well known to his admirers, he went through a long period of ten years when he
rejected all religions and was a votary of pure reason. Eventually he regained his faith in religion in general and Islam in particular, some might say with a vengeance. Be that as it may, he gives a vivid and honest account of those states of mind in the book Apbiti. According to him his faith in religion returned with his readings in Buddhist and Hindu texts, including the Bhagawad Gita, and his return to Islam was very much facilitated by his chance discovery of the English translation of the Qur’an by “Muhammad Ali Lahori Ahmadi.” (That was, incidentally, the first English translation by any Muslim.) This is what he wrote:

I impatiently pulled it out from the cabinet and began to read, and, God be praised, the more I read the more my faith increased … May Allah give that Muhammad Ali a place in Paradise [karwaT karwaT jannat de]. What he believed about the Mirza [Ghulam Ahmad] Sahib [the founder of the sect] is of no concern to me. Was he right or was he wrong, I don’t care. I can’t help but tell my personal experience, for it was he who hammered in the final nail into the coffin of my disbelief and rejection (kufr wa irtidad).” (Apbiti, Lucknow, 1978, p. 254.)

Surely, not one of the worthies mentioned above can claim to have served Islam similarly.

The other book is a classic, a one-of-its-kind intellectual history of Islam in South Asia. It is in three chronologically arranged volumes, the last of which, Mauj-iKausar, deals with the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. The author, ShaikhMuhammad Ikram, was a scholar and Pakistani civil servant who also published very important books on Ghalib and Shibli Nu’mani. The first two volumes of the history were probably published in 1937; the final third was published either in 1947 or soon after. The three volumes went through two or three revisions and repeated printings in both India and Pakistan. The copy I have is the expanded and revised edition of 1962. It consists of six sections, one of which is titled “Modern Scholastic Theology” (Jadid ‘Ilm-al-Kalam). It lists the following eight subsections: “Sir Syed; Maulavi Charagh Ali; Syed Amir Ali; Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the Qadiani Jama’at; Ahmadiya Jama’at of Lahore; Muslim Missionaries; Nadwat-al-‘Ulama; and Deoband.” In other words, a highly recognized Muslim scholar of Pakistan, no less, felt no hesitation in according the Ahmadis of both kinds a place in the intellectual history of South Asian Muslims, despite his equally immediate critique of some of the “personal” claims made by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The so-called “Maulanas” fail to understand that a school textbook is neither a missionary tract nor a site to declare someone kafir, that even a heretic Muslim remains a part of the history of Muslims— he does not become a part of some other religious history—and that it is not the state’s job to take sides in sectarian matters. They claim that “all” Muslims are united in considering the Ahmadis beyond the pale of Islam, but then many of the same Muslims turn around and feel no hesitation in hurling accusations of heresy against each other, to the extent of any degree of violence. Just look at what has been
happening for years in Pakistan.

It should be noted that extreme sectarianism and religious persecution of minorities in Pakistan began with the anti-Ahmadi movement led by Abul Ala Maududi and others during the regime of the army dictator, Gen. Ayub Khan, but gained enormous power only after the “socialist” Z. A. Bhutto, conceded the demand in a desperate attempt to save his political fortune. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq only worsened the situation with his draconian laws. He also fully exploited the sectarian passions of the mullahs and
maulanas to keep the ordinary Pakistani beguiled while expanding the army’s control in every sector of Pakistan’s economy. What began as a campaign against the Ahmadis has now turned into a raging battle between most of the Muslims sects in
Pakistan, who come together only when they wish to beat up on some hapless Hindu, Sikh, or Christian. Then they go back to bashing each other, not sparing even the sacred precincts of mosques and Sufi shrines. That the same scenario of sectarian
violence has not played out in India is not due to any lack of attempt on the part of some of the so-called leaders. Read some of the writings of Abul Hasan Ali Nadvi and Manzur Nu’mani and the Urdu journals and pamphlets put out by various Muslims organizations, go to the cassette shops in Basti Nizamuddin and similar places, or flip through the pages of most Urdu dailies and you will easily find enough to make you worried abut the future of Indian Islam at the hands of these self-appointed and mutually perpetuating “Muslim leaders.” You will find at the very least a shameless coarseness of feeling and language that, in Pakistan, eventually led to a state where journalists covering the recent massacre of Ahmadis in a mosque in Lahore declined to drink the tea that was offered by the victims’ relatives. The latest manifestation of that same erosion of basic human feelings in the cause of sectarianism was reported in the Daily Times (Lahore) of August 21:

LAHORE: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed serious concern over the murder of two Ahmedis in the last three days and over reports of denial of shelter to the members of the Ahmadi community in southern Punjab. In a statement issued on Friday, the HRCP said, “The unrelenting target killings of members of the Ahmadi community by extremists is a poor reflection on the state’s obligation to protect the lives of all subjects. This week, the murder of an Ahmadi in Sanghar and another, a doctor, in Karachi only highlights the impunity the perpetrators of such heinous crimes enjoy. Only bringing the culprits to justice would bring an end to these senseless killings.” The HRCP is also shocked by reports that government officials have refused to provide shelter to around 500 Ahmadi families from Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh and Rajanpur districts.

That a religious majority might take to persecuting a religious minority is a possibility that everyone unhesitatingly understands. What is not so readily understood is that a minority itself often consists of one or two prominent collectives plus several smaller
ones, and that the “majority” within a minority can persecute the smaller groups under the same psychological compulsions of authority and control that it accuses the national majority of displaying against it. That is where state institutions must
intervene, and play their critical role of both vigilance and diligence in providing physical, social, and economic security to all citizens of the country, regardless of the peculiarities or even idiosyncrasies of their beliefs. I hope Ms Mayawati’s government stands firm in this matter. School textbooks are not meant to teach what religion or sect is “true.” Their only purpose is to make the students a little bit knowledgeable about some subject in a fair and unbiased manner. People in India, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, must learn from the sectarian developments in Pakistan, and make every effort to nip in the bud any expression of sectarian prejudice in public contexts.

Original article

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2. Third largest political party of Pakistan claim persecution must stop

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Apa Nisar Fatima – the Jamaat e Islami legislator and mother to Ahsan Iqbal – sitting MNA from PML-N moved in 1986 the law that became known as Blasphemy Law. She then went to the Federal Shariat Court and got a judgment which stated that death penalty can be the only punishment for blasphemy.

It has been my considered view that roots of all Islamist terrorism and extremism in Pakistan can be traced back to Majlis-e-Ahrar- which as most of you are aware was famous for calling Pakistan “Kafiristan” and Jinnah “Kafir-e-Azam”. Islamist dictator General Zia- himself from an Ahrari family – deliberately strengthened the Islamist elements from Majlis-e-Ahrar and Jamaat-e-Islami and handed the state over to them.

Apa Nisar Fatima – it turns out – was also from a distinguished Ahrari family: She was the daughter of General Zia’s old family friend Chaudhry Abdul Rehman who was a famous Ahrar agitator.

“Born in Rahon Jullunder. He completed his primary education from Jullunder. He became MLA after the death of Chaudhary Jang Baz Khan. Jang Baz Khan was the Rana of Rahon and his brother. The Jagir of Rahon came into the hands of Abdur Rehman. In 1927 for the first time he was elected member of the legislative assembly from jullunder, he remained member till july 26 1930. Second time in 1930. He joined Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam,and also supported the Red Shirts Movement led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, The working committee of the MAI, in a meeting at Lahore on 12 June 1933, took the decision to participate in the three bye-elections for the Punjab Assembly. It selected three prominent MAI figures as its candidates to contest these polls. The second candidate was Chaudhry Abdul Rahman Khan, he was a prominent member of a Ghorewaha Rajput family of Rahon Jallundhar, He was selected to contest the Muslim urban seat from the Sheikhupura, Ludhiana, Gurdaspur and Jullunder’s area. He led the Ahrar agitation in Kapurthala. “

It bears recalling that Ahraris were important allies of the Congress Party against all secular minded Muslims. Another prominent Islamist from this category was Agha Shorish Kashmiri – the man who forged an interview. He was the leader in the agitation against Ahmadis throughout the first three decades of the creation of Pakistan. Lately Agha Shorish Kashmiri has become somewhat of a hero to the less discerning with his so called interview with Maulana Azad.

The state of Pakistan – indeed its very creation – has been questioned given the events in recent times. However it is very important to set the record straight for our future generations and for the sake of history.

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Question: Do you believe in God or a universal spirit? [IF BELIEVE IN GOD, ASK]: How certain are you about this belief? Are you absolutely certain, fairly certain, not too certain, or not at all certain? [IF BELIEVE IN GOD, ASK]: Which comes closest to your view of God? God is a person with whom people can have a relationship or God is an impersonal force?

March is Women’s History Month. A new analysis of data from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that women are more religious than men on a variety of measures.

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2. Women are subservient to Men

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