Time to correct Muslim image: Vice-President of India, Hamid Ansari, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Time to correct Muslim image: Vice-President of India, Hamid Ansari

In what could trigger a debate in the Muslim community, Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Saturday spoke about the need for separating “harmful social custom” from the religious law and codifying the rules relating to marriage, divorce and succession. He also asked Muslims to shun the “syndrome of victim-hood” and seize the benefits offered by a growing economy.

Delivering the Khuda Bakhsh Memorial Lecture in Patna, Ansari said Muslims should engage in “sustained, candid, and uninterrupted” interaction with fellow citizens without a “syndrome of superiority or inferiority” and strive for self-empowerment, making the best use of government assistance. He also sought a revolutionary approach to give equal status to women.

The crux of Ansari’s argument was that the “failure of communication” with the wider community has tended to freeze the boundaries of diversities that characterise the Indian society. “People have tended to live together separately. As a result, stereotypes have been developed and nurtured.”

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/time-to-correct-muslim-image-vp/553481/

http://newageislam.com/time-to-correct-muslim-image--vice-president-of-india,-hamid-ansari-/islamic-world-news/d/2215

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