Islamic Movement gathers steam in Israel, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Islamic Movement gathers steam in Israel

UMM AL-FAHM, Israel (JTA) -- It's time for noon prayers in this Israeli Arab city, and a jumble of sneakers piles up outside the doors of a mosque on the top floor of a private high school for the sciences.

Inside, the boys, led in prayer by a math teacher, stand in two rows on a soft green-and-beige carpet and then kneel in unison. The $5.8 million tab to construct the high school, considered one of the top Arab schools in Israel with its state-of-the art physics and chemistry labs, was picked up by the Islamic Movement.

Such support -- helping fund community needs not being met by the Israeli government -- is one way the movement is gaining power and influence among Israel's 1.2 million Arabs.

"This vacuum has opened the door for the Islamic Movement to get in and provide alternative services," said Yousef Jabareen, a resident of Umm al-Fahm and director of Dirasat, a nonprofit that advocates for socioeconomic and political equality for Israel's Arab citizens.

The influence of the movement -- particularly its northern branch, which preaches adherence to a devout form of Islam and a code of social isolation from Israel at large -- can be seen in the shift toward increased religious observance among some of Israel's Arab citizens, the majority of whom are Muslim.

Critics say the movement's more extreme elements preach a form of nationalism that is actively anti-Israeli and is radicalizing Israel's Arab citizens. Its social service tactics have been compared to the work of Hamas, which similarly built a base of support among ordinary Palestinians by providing social services not offered by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority.

http://newageislam.com/islamic-movement-gathers-steam-in-israel/islamic-world-news/d/2174

Jamiat-ul-Ulema knows it cannot push women back into burqas,

The War within Islam

Jamiat-ul-Ulema knows it cannot push women back into burqas

By Sultan Shahin

November 9, 2009

These ahadees contravene the progressive, even feminist teachings of the Koran specifically to degrade and humiliate women and uphold the pre-Islamic practices.

The Jamiat has asked Muslim men to ensure "sisters, wives and mothers wear burqa", and do not bring "disrepute to the community". Endorsing Jamiat's archaic thinking, a number of ulema told the large Muslim gathering that a woman's status in society should be "secondary and subdued". They should abstain from watching cinema or television or going to co-ed schools; restrictive Sharia practices would apply to them after the age of 10.

The Jamiat also reiterated its opposition to the government's efforts to provide millions of bonded madrasa students an option to join the mainstream of society by acquiring knowledge and skills other than that of becoming a muezzin or an Imam of a mosque. It also repeated, completely unnecessarily, its earlier fatwa against Muslims singing Vande Mataram, half a century after the issue was settled.

Clearly Jamiat's burqa is slipping and the veneer of broadmindedness is wearing off. Composite nationalism calls for adjustment on the part of all communities. Unity in diversity and not uniformity of the Sangh Parivar world-view is definitely the idea best suited for India.

http://newageislam.com/jamiat-ul-ulema-knows-it-cannot-push-women-back-into-burqas/the-war-within-islam/d/2077

New Ferment in Zionism, old and new, modest and radical, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

New Ferment in Zionism, old and new, modest and radical

Nationalism figures prominently in Berlin's writings. Since at least the 19th century, intellectuals have eagerly predicted a withering of nationalist sentiment, an ideal that remains strong on the European left. Berlin, however, felt that to ignore the apparent inevitability of nationalism (even if we might wish it otherwise) is itself a sort of utopian delusion. The human desire for a sense of home and fraternity, he believed, is an enduring and not altogether negative feature of political life. Nationalism is "a basic human need," he argued, that can, in certain circumstances, represent "the straightening of bent backs." And Jewish backs, perhaps more than any other, were in need of straightening.

But Berlin's Zionism was a modest Zionism. He did not regard his deep-felt solidarity with his own Jewish people as superior or different from similar bonds that united other nations. Membership in one community, he insisted, does not preclude "holding a large area of ideals in common with everyone else." Berlin did not limit himself to dual loyalties; he had a multitude of them. Furthermore, he didn't look upon Israel as a metaphysical project, a light unto the nations. Israel is a country, not a cause, he believed. And his observations of the Jewish state were not always charitable. "The trouble about the Israelis is not only their partly unconscious conviction born of experience that virtue always loses and only toughness pays, but a great provincialism and blindness to outside opinion," he remarked to Felix Frankfurter in 1951. And though Berlin despaired about the quality of Israeli leadership - he privately described David Ben-Gurion as an efficient demagogue - he did not confuse the individual failings of politicians with a failure of Zionism, a frequently elided distinction in our time.

http://newageislam.com/new-ferment-in-zionism,-old-and-new,-modest-and-radical--/current-affairs/d/1452

Ulema and Pakistan Movement, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics

Ulema and Pakistan Movement

Mansoor Hallaj to Editor@NewAgeIslam.com

Muslim religious organisations of the sub-continent -- Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, Majlis-i- Ahrar- i-Islam and Jamat-i-Islami [1]-- were politically very active during the struggle for Pakistan but all of them opposed tooth and nail the creation of a separate homeland for the Muslims. The opposition of Jamiat and Ahrar was on the plea that Pakistan was essentially a territorial concept and thus alien to the philosophy of Islamic brotherhood, which was universal in character. Nationalism was an un-Islamic concept for them but at the same time they supported the CongressParty's idea of Indian nationalism which the Muslim political leadership considered as accepting perpetual domination of Hindu majority. Jamat-i-Islami reacted to the idea of Pakistan in a complex manner. It rejected both the nationalist Ulema's concept of nationalism as well as the Muslim League's demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims.

http://newageislam.com/ulema-and-pakistan-movement/islam-and-politics/d/919