Muslims say goodbye to Ramadan, welcome to Eid al-Fitr, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Muslims say goodbye to Ramadan, welcome to Eid al-Fitr

Worshippers greet and hug one another in a spirit of peace and love after the congregational prayer in celebration of one another's Eid. They later disperse to visit their families and friends, give gifts to one another and make phone calls to distant relatives to convey good wishes for the holiday. Eid lasts for three days and is generally an official holiday in Muslim countries.

Muslims around the world share in the great blessing of the tranquil and spiritual Eid morning. It is a joyous occasion of important religious significance, celebrating the increase in piety with which God blesses the world during the month of Ramadan. It is a day of forgiveness and moral victory as well as of brotherhood and unity. Muslims celebrate not only the end of fasting, but also thank God for the help and strength that he bestowed upon them throughout the month of fasting, during which they endured their fast with not only a physical but also a spiritual asceticism -- that is, they have controlled their stomachs, their tongues and their hearts, so they have successfully passed the test of servant hood. It is a time of giving and sharing.

Common greetings during this holiday are the Arabic greeting “Eid mubarak,” (May your Eid be blessed). Turks and Muslims living in areas where the Ottoman presence heavily influenced local customs say "Bayramin mübarek olsun" during Eid, also meaning “May your Eid be blessed.”

http://newageislam.com/muslims-say-goodbye-to-ramadan,-welcome-to-eid-al-fitr-/islamic-world-news/d/1775

2 Bengal madrasas turn a chapter, more Hindus than Muslims on rolls, Islam and Pluralism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Pluralism

2 Bengal madrasas turn a chapter, more Hindus than Muslims on rolls

Shiv Sahay Singh

Most of the students belong to families of agricultural labourers or daily wage earners. The guardians, who themselves lack formal education, have no hesitation in sending their wards to these institutes or having them study Arabic or Islamic Studies. These two subjects are compulsory in senior classes in madrasas and students have to appear for them in their Class X exam under the West Bengal Board of Madrasa Education.

Kanika Roy, studying in Class X, is one of the best students in Arabic at the Orgram Chatuspalli Madrasa. She can recite “suras” from the Quran and read Arabic as well as her Muslim friends. She also knows the biographies of Islamic saints and one of her favourites is Begum Rokeya, a Muslim social reformer from Bengal.

At the madrasa, students in lower classes get books free of cost while all girl students are given school uniforms in each session.

“What will the children do studying only religious scripts? Instead, we lay more emphasis on teaching science and mathematics,” says Headmaster Anwar Hussain.

The madrasa started in a thatched hut in 1975 on land donated by locals. It was affiliated to the West Bengal Board of Madrasa Education in 1980, and in 2005 was granted the status of a High madrasa.

http://newageislam.com/2-bengal-madrasas-turn-a-chapter,-more-hindus-than-muslims-on-rolls---/islam-and-pluralism/d/1165

Making A Mockery Of Jihad, Islamic Sharia Laws, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Sharia Laws

Making A Mockery Of Jihad

By Asghar Ali Engineer

7 Oct 2008

There is great emphasis in the Quran on justice in all social and political matters and it uses three words for justice — ’adl, qist and hakama. These three words occur 244 times in the Quran. To seek revenge is human weakness, not strength. Thus, a devout Muslim tends to forgive like Allah who forgives his servants if they sincerely repent. Those who are waging jihad in the form of terror attacks are bent upon seeking revenge whereas a good Muslim would tend to forgive just as Allah does.

In Shariah law, jihad can be declared only by the state or those empowered by it. Terror attacks, on the other hand, are planned and executed by a few individuals unrepresentative of any state or state institution. So their attacks cannot be legitimate by any Islamic or Shariah law. That is nothing but committing murder of innocent people. Also, according to Islamic laws, in jihad no non-combatant can be attacked, much less women, children and old persons and no civilian property can be destroyed unless it is being used for military purposes or for purposes of combat.

It can be seen that the rules laid down for war by Islamic laws are no different from modern laws of warfare or the Geneva conventions. But terror attacks are a gross violation of all these Islamic rules and there is no way these attacks can be characterised as jihad. The terrorists are described by the media as jihadis. This is a gross misuse of the word as there is no word like jihadi in the Arabic language. It is in fact ‘mujahid’ and it is used in a laudatory sense — one who devotes oneself to a good cause like fighting against social evils.

http://newageislam.com/making-a-mockery-of-jihad/islamic-sharia-laws/d/858

Excerpts from The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

Excerpts from The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West

Although Grenier did receive some late-night callers whispering “Death to the enemies of Allah,” no governments banned his book or called for his murder. WT 15 Feb

As for scholarship, nothing could challenge Islam more completely than two books published in 1977. John Wansbrough’s Quranic Studies makes the following points about the Qur’an: that it was written by many human hands (and not by God); that the compilation took place over a period lasting perhaps as long as three and a half centuries (rather than twenty-two years); that the authors drew on many cultural traditions, especially the Jewish; and that Muhammad was merely a prophet figure—real or imaginary, it hardly matters—who had nothing at all to do with the composition of the Qur’an (rather than being its sole source).[2]

Drawing on Wansbrough’s efforts, Hagarism, a historical study by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, ignores information on Muhammad and the Qur’an deriving from the standard sources—the Arabic literary accounts. Instead, the authors rely entirely on Aramaic, Armenian, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Syriac sources, as well as Arabic papyri, coins and inscriptions. 259-60 This re-examination leads Crone and Cook to turn the normal account of Islam’s origins upside-down. In their version, Muhammad was not elevated “to the role of a scriptural prophet” until the year a.d. 700 or so, seventy years after his death;[3] and the Qur’an was compiled only under the auspices of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the governor of Iraq in 694-714. EI2 3 To put it mildly, these assertions are at odds with what Muslims believe. Although Wansbrough, Crone and Cook raised a small tempest in academic circles, their books, with the implied charge that Islam was a fraud from the first, were altogether ignored by Muslims.

http://newageislam.com/excerpts-from-the-rushdie-affair--the-novel,-the-ayatollah,-and-the-west----/books-and-documents/d/814

India And The Golden Age Of Islam, Islamic History, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic History
India And The Golden Age Of Islam
By Arif Mohammed Khan
According to the Arab historian al-Qifti, the caliph was amazed by the brilliance of these Indian texts. On his order, these works were translated into Arabic by Al-Fazari, who subsequently emerged as the first Arab astronomer of great repute. Over a period of time, this Arabic version gained fame under the title of Sindhind and became popular as a text of mathematics and astronomy all over the Muslim world including Spain from where it travelled to Europe and was translated into Latin in 1126. This work revolutionized the study of mathematics and sciences and replaced the cumbersome Roman numerals. It is interesting to note that while Europe has christened the new system as Arab numerals, the Arabs call them Hindsa (Indian numerals) giving credit where it is due.

http://newageislam.com/india-and-the-golden-age-of-islam--/islamic-history/d/131