Now, Islamic Terror Strikes Pakistan’s Top University, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Now, Islamic Terror Strikes Pakistan’s Top University

LAHORE: The professor was working in his office here on the campus of Pakistan’s largest university this month when members of an Islamic student group battered open the door, beat him with metal rods and bashed him over the head with a giant flower pot.

Iftikhar Baloch, an environmental science professor, had expelled members of the group for violent behavior. The retribution left him nearly unconscious, and it united his fellow professors, who protested with a nearly three-week strike that ended on Monday.

The attack and the anger it provoked have drawn attention to the student group, Islami Jamiat Talaba, whose morals police have for years terrorized this graceful, century-old institution by brandishing a chauvinistic form of Islam, teachers here say.

But the group has help from a surprising source — national political leaders who have given it free rein, because they sometimes make political alliances with its parent organization, Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s oldest and most powerful religious party, they say.

The university’s plight encapsulates Pakistan’s predicament: an intolerant, aggressive minority terrorizes a more open-minded, peaceful majority, while an opportunistic political class dithers, benefiting from alliances with the aggressors.

This is the University of the Punjab, Pakistan’s premier institution of higher learning, with about 30,000 students, and a principal avenue of advancement for the swelling ranks of Pakistan’s lower and middle classes.

The battle here concerns the future direction of the country, and whether those pushing an intolerant vision of Islam will prevail against this nation’s outward-looking, educated class.

That is why the problem of Islami Jamiat Talaba is so urgent, teachers say. The rhetoric of the group is strongly anti-West, chauvinistic and intolerant of Pakistan’s religious minorities. It was a vocal Taliban supporter, until doing so became unpopular last year. Its members block music classes, ban soft drinks and beat male students for sitting near girls on the university lawn.

http://newageislam.com/now,-islamic-terror-strikes-pakistans-top-university/islamic-world-news/d/2742

Taqlidi versus Ijtihadi approaches: The Prophet based, Ijtihad, Rethinking Islam, NewAgeIslam.com

Ijtihad, Rethinking Islam

Taqlidi versus Ijtihadi approaches: The Prophet based his decisions on what is possible and what is not

By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

(Translated by Yoginder Sikand)

But contemporary Muslim societies present a completely different picture. In modern times, their intellectual development has almost come to a halt. This is because they have developed a taqlidi, as opposed to ijtihadi, way of thinking, and consider ijtihad to be almost a sin. Many Muslims mistakenly believe that in terms of religious perspectives, the ulema of the past have accomplished all that there was to, and that today our task is simply to study the books that they wrote and strictly follow them.

This approach is a major hurdle in the path of our intellectual progress. In this regard, Muslims can adopt one of two positions: to recognise, like Shaw did with regard to Shakespeare, that their stature might be less than that of the ulema of the past, but that, despite this, they are standing on the latter's shoulders; or to believe that because their stature is less than that of the ulema of the past, they must remain forever at the latter's feet.

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CHAPTER 3: TABLEEGHI JAMAAT - A STAGGERING

Books and Documents

CHAPTER 3: TABLEEGHI JAMAAT - A STAGGERING RECORD OF RELIGIOUS TYRANNIES by Maulana Arshadul Qadri

By Maulana Arshadul Qadri

When the late Sultan Abdul Aziz Ibne Saud took the victorious strides especially for Hijaz-e-Muqaddas, the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind was the only party, which considered it as a good fortune for Hijaz against the European Diplomacy and congratulated the Late Sultan.

And then through its special representative it continued giving useful advices in the court of the deceased Sultan from time to time and Jamiat Ulema Hind proved very successful in this task because they accepted our advices, which closed the mouths of opponents and our corrective objectives also became successful.

After the complete establishment of the Government and the dynasty of the family of Saud, on the occasion of the First Haj Pilgrimage Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind was that religious and political party which sent its representative and expressed its happiness and satisfaction. (Shah Saud Walia Arab Ka Daura-e-Hind, Lala Rukh Publications, Srinagar, Kashmir, pp/38)

"The Victorious Step of the Najidis" for which Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind had sent its message of greetings and the "Corrective objects" on which it has expressed its happiness and satisfaction, until the shuddering details of these things do not come before us we will not be able to understand the background of this address. Thanks to Allah the details of these matters have reached us through reliable sources.

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