The State of the Caliphate: The Fortunes of War

By The Economist May 30th 2015 IF SENTIMENT in the towns in or bordering the so-called “caliphate” of Islamic State (IS) is anything to go by, the jihadists are winning the war. “IS is here to stay,” a doctor in Falluja says of the group’s grip on Anbar, Iraq’s largest province. It is a sharp reversal from just a few months ago, when the campaign against IS seemed to be going quite well. Then, Syrian Kurdish fighters had defeated IS in Kobane. In Iraq the jihadists had been pushed out of 25% of the territory they had grabbed in their blitzkrieg advance a year ago and been expelled from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown. There was even talk of an offensive later in the year to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city. But after...

Borders We’ve Forgotten

By An Editorial in Pioneer 28 May 2015 Ajit Doval’s remark brings focus on Afghanistan National Security Advisor Ajit Doval's comment that India has a 106km long border with Afghanistan has, understandably, taken many by surprise. In these past few decades, it has become an almost uncontested fact that India has no land boundary with Afghanistan. The commentariat here has also devoted much time and space to how this cartographic reality limits the role that India can play in Afghanistan, allows an unfair advantage to Pakistan, and also hurts Afghanistan’s chances of an economic revival (as it is effectively held hostage to Pakistani whims for land access to Indian markets). In the midst of it all, it has been forgotten, and for quite some time now, that at least officially India...

Breaking the Silence on Menstruation

By Bina Shah May 29th, 2015 We have a lot of days related to women on the calendar, but May 28th is one that I hadn’t heard about before: Global Menstrual Hygiene Day. I was alerted to this by Irise International, an NGO that addresses inadequate Menstrual Hygiene Management in developing nations. Irise educates girls and women about their periods, supports local social businesses where women make reusable sanitary products, and conducts research to find out the effectiveness of their programs. Menstrual periods, which are natural and happen to every girl and woman around the world, can actually be a problem for women who are economically disadvantaged. Without the resources to manage their hygiene during days they have their...

Bangladesh: Bloggers in Peril

By Shahedul Anam Khan May 29th, 2015 BETWEEN 2012 and now, four bloggers in Bangladesh have fallen victim to the wrath of extremists who choose violence to articulate their differences. It is only very recently that in Bangladesh the word ‘blog’, or for that matter ‘bloggers’, has come to be seen in pejorative terms by some quarters. Bloggers in general are being portrayed as sinister people involved in vilification, defamation and disparagement of religion, particularly Islam. And some of these bloggers who used social media to vent their feelings about religion have become the targets of extremists. Not surprisingly, their murders have sullied Bangladesh’s secular and liberal credentials. It is unfortunate that the acts of...

Arab Leaders and Insanity of Sectarian Warfare

By Mahboob A. Khawaja 27 May, 2015 Wars are Planned to Entrap the Mankind Wars kill human beings and destroy human habitats. But the Western warmongers flag it as a positive development for change and economic necessity. Its net result is the militarization of the societal thinking and geopolitics. Peace is not the outcome of wars and human cruelty. The ongoing Arab sectarian warfare spells out dark images of human paradoxes. The global community is watchful of all the developments shaping the sectarian bloodbaths in the Arab Middle East. What surprises most across the Arab bewildered human consciousness that continuing deaths and destructions are the agenda-making items, whereas, reconciliation and peace-making leading to conflict management are not the top strategic priorities....

Scholars Failing Islam

By Syed Kamran Hashmi May 29, 2015 “Maybe Adam was pregnant with Eve,” Professor Ahmed Rafique Akhtar, a renowned religious scholar, shared his understanding of evolution with me one day, “This can be the only explanation of Eve coming out of Adam’s rib,” he said. To avoid unnecessary arguments, I did not confront him then. However, his words shook me up, compelling me to revaluate my own ideas about Islam and to reconsider my fundamental values as a human being. Years later, and after numerous sleepless nights, my faith has both matured and evolved. As an ordinary person, I do not claim to bear the real knowledge of Islam and the universe but the scholars and sufis who do, without realising the gravity of their assertion,...

Art, History and Artefact

By Rafia Zakaria May 27th, 2015 “IT was painful to see the state chair of gold of late lion of the Punjab ... with a mere picture upon it, shawls without babes, musical instruments without a Hindu player, jezails and swords without sipahis and sowars; and above all hookahs without the fume of fantastic shapes.” These words, spoken by student Rakhal Das Halder in 1862, are quoted by scholar Bernard Cohn in his book Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge. Halder had just been to see an exhibit at Fife House in London, where objects from his native land were now shut up behind glass cases and edified into relics. As Cohn argues, the valuation of Indian objects — as art, as antiquity or as everyday objects — changed with the arrival...

The Necessity of Tolerance among Muslims: Hazrat Said Nursi on Bridging the Sunni and Shi’a Sectarianism

By Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu, New Age Islam 29 May, 2015 Hazrat Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (circa 1877-1960), the Turkish Islamic mystic-theologian, who is considered as the renewer of Islam in post-Ottoman and early republican Turkey, devoted many treatises that exhort for the unity among Muslims the world over. For instance, his book Damascus Sermon (Istanbul: Sozler Publications, 2004; pp.78-81, 83-89) called on Muslims of the world to manifest what Nursi calls, Ittihad Muhammadi or Union of the Followers of Prophet Muhammad. According to Nursi, this is the most important step in achieving Islamic Renaissance so that Muslims will rise up once again to become leaders of a righteous society and a just civilization throughout...

IS Recruits by Presenting an Idealised Utopia

  By Syerleena Abdul Rashid 26 May 2015 Many unassuming individuals fall for this heavily romanticised fallacy that also ‘promises’ some level of excitement and sense of adventure, observes Syerleena Abdul Rashid. According to Jamil Khir Baharom, who is in charge of Islamic Affairs, women who join IS are often lonely and fragile. “Lonely women who can’t sleep at night will stay awake and be online on their Facebook. They are still online on Facebook at 2.00am or 3.00am”. His remarks only provide an extremely oversimplified generalisation and are not coherent enough to provide the solution our government needs to combat the rapid ‘radicalisation’ of Malaysian men and women. Radicalisation is a process where individuals...

Madrasas Are Dens Of Vice and Homosexuality: AMU Professor's Alleged Remarks Spark Uproar

By First Post Staff May 27, 2015 An Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) professor has sparked controversy by allegedly calling Madrasas "dens of vice and homosexuality". Waseem Raja, History department professor at AMU and a teacher at the university for around 30 years, allegedly said in a WhatsApp message which was sent to a TV channel that "Maulanas are involved in such activities", adding that the condition of Muslim youth will only improve if Madrasas are banned, according to India TV. The report added that a grab of the chat read, "We want removal of Madrasa... Where homo sexuality is rampant...Maulanas are part of it." However, the professor denied saying any such thing. "I did not say anything like that," The Times of India quoted Raja as saying. "I have been part of SAARC...

Mankind's True Enemies: Islamic State is out to Destroy Human Heritage

By An Editorial in Pioneer 27 May, 2015 Since the 2011 Arab uprising, Islamist terror groups in West Asia have not only destablised entire nations but have also threatened to snap mankind's civilisational linkages with its ancient past. Not satisfied with having laid waste to modern-day Iraq and Syria, the savages of the Islamic State are steadily obliterating the historical remnants of the ancient empires of Mesopotamia, Rome and Greece — one museum, statue, temple and tomb at a time. The Syrian city of Palmyria, which was recently run over by the Islamic State, is only the latest casualty in this civilisational clash. The oasis town to the north of Damascus has a history that goes back to 7500 BC. It reached the zenith of its glory during the Roman era when it became an important...

Righteousness from a Global Perspective

By Iftekhar Hai, New Age Islam 28 May, 2015 God/Allah has favoured every person with a conscience.  Every person in his/her conscience knows what is right and what is wrong. Muslims believe in the revelations that came before Islam.  The Quran says, “To every people was send an Apostle, in their own language, in their own country – to clarify (misunderstandings).” 14:4, 16:36 & 10:47 The Quran also says in a very pluralistic tone in 5:48 that Holy Guidance/Scriptures were also given to people who came before our Prophet was born and before the Quran came into existence. The Quran also commands Muslims to respect Freedom of Religion and to never coerce believers from other faiths in 2:256. Hence to be...