Friday, 24 January 2020
Kashmir reappears on the UNSC radar after 49 years!
Kashmir reappears on the UNSC radar after 49 years!
How are different Security Council members reacting?
Police break up women’s protest in Varanasi, 6 held
January 24, 2020
Police break up women’s protest in Varanasi, 6 held
After registering an FIR against the protesters, police released photos of 24 people, who they claimed were protesters and sought information about their whereabouts with a reward of Rs 5,000.
Written by Avaneesh Mishra | Lucknow | Published: January 24, 2020 2:59:55 am
Their cases falling, Muzaffarnagar police now invoke Juvenile Act
January 24, 2020
Their cases falling, Muzaffarnagar police now invoke
Juvenile Act, say anti-CAA protesters used kids
Section 83 (2) of the JJ Act was invoked against at least 33 accused named in an FIR lodged on December 21 at the Civil Line police station in Muzaffarnagar — that FIR was also against 3,000 unknown accused.
Monday, 20 January 2020
A BILLBOARD IN DALLAS SPARKS CONVERSATION ABOUT ISLAM !
A
billboard on Interstate 45, north of Dallas is intended to encourage discussion
of the fundamental beliefs associated with Islam.
A
billboard up this month in Dallas is designed to encourage dialogue on the
fundamental teachings of Islam.
The
billboard on Interstate 45, southeast of downtown Dallas, features
the message: "Find Jesus in the Qur'an, Muhammad in the
Bible."
"The
Muslim Jesus" campaign was launched by a Chicago-based
group called GainPeace. The
group does community outreach for the Islamic
Circle of North America. Sabeel Ahmed is the executive director of
GainPeace.
"Our
main purpose is to build bridges, and to erase the misconceptions," Ahmed
said. "We want to educate our fellow Americans, giving them an opportunity
to look into Islam, to read about Islam through our website and
billboards."
The
goal of the billboard is to let the public know that Jesus is not only a
part of Christianity, he is also a part of Islam. Ahmed said people in
other faith traditions may have the misconception that Muslims don't believe in
Jesus and the Virgin Mary. They want to address that.
"Jesus
is mentioned with love and respect and honor more than 25 times in the
Quran," Ahmed said. "Mary the mother of Jesus is likewise mentioned
32 times in the Quran."
The
same billboard, designed to spark dialogue, is on display in Houston,
Chicago and Atlanta. It also says "Free Qur'an, discuss Islam," inviting
people to call 1-800-662-ISLAM.
Ahmed
said these billboard campaigns have brought in thousands of calls over the
years.
"We
have received close to 60,000 calls in the last 10 years," he said.
"People call us, they ask us questions, and we also have a service where
we send them a free copy of the Quran, either in English or in
Spanish."
Ahmed
said he hopes the billboard campaign will help people realize that Islam
stands for justice and peace.
https://www.keranews.org/post/dallas-billboard-seeks-spark-conversation-about-islam
https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/dallas-billboard-seeks-to-spark-conversation-about-islam/
https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/dallas-billboard-seeks-to-spark-conversation-about-islam/
'Salaams to all~
~ Y a s m i n ~
~*Never Despair Of The
Mercy Of Allah*~
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~Say, 'Indeed, my
Prayer, my Rites of Sacrifice,
my Living and my Dying
are for ALLAH, Lord of the Worlds'~
{'Qur`an'~Surat
Al-`An`am -# 6-162.}
Monday, 2 December 2019
How cycling through Africa with no money brought us closer to Allah
Adam I. Seedat, By 5Pillars, 25 November 2019
Nathim Cairncross and Abdullah Jimenez embarked upon a year-long bike
trip which took them from Kenya to Turkey. Now living in Istanbul, their
experiences on the trip uncovered some incredible spiritual gems, as Nafees
Mahmud reports.
Amongst the hustle and bustle of the approximately 20 million people
living in Istanbul are two recently arrived friends: 38-year-old Nathim
Cairncross, an English teacher from South Africa and 24-year-old barista
Abdullah Jimenez from Spain.
They are the most chilled out people you can meet: comfortable in their
own skins.
One reason for this is the journey that brought them here. They
travelled from Cape Town to Istanbul (mostly) via bicycle over a year and both
men attest to the spiritual growth this led to.
“This journey allowed me to know myself and he who knows himself, knows
his Lord. Through this trip I got a step closer to my own truth: knowing how to
act according to what my own heart wants,” says Abdullah.
Nathim adds that despite the shortage of money and having no guaranteed
accommodation the simple act of getting up and going compelled him to “develop
more trust and conviction that all will be ok.”
A good idea
Such journeys are usually undertaken by travel writers or those
fundraising for charity. For them, the motive wasn’t specific. The casual way
in which the trip was initiated is reflective of their admirably nonchalant
demeanour. Nathim says “it just sounded like a good idea.”
It was proposed to them over dinner by another friend who started the
journey with them but ended up taking a different route. “It was very
spontaneous,” Nathim reflects. For him, it was another opportunity to break
free of the shackles of daily life which he feels can impose rigid structures
on people.
“I wasn’t thinking about consequences. If you think about those matters
you kind of create barriers for yourself. Even during the journey, we can
see if we put up excuses it wouldn’t have happened.”
He’d previously made a similar trip in 2010, cycling from Cape Town to
Mecca to perform Hajj so his confidence in his own endurance wasn’t under
question. For Abdullah, two days after the adventure was proposed he quit his
job and within two weeks had everything he needed (bike, spare parts, backpack)
except what seemed the most obvious necessity: money.
“I only had fifty dollars. I told the guys I want to do this but have no
money. They hardly had any either and said I didn’t need any.” Initially he was
sceptical but as the journey began he says the truth of their insight unfolded.
They left Cape Town in August 2018. The journey involved a plane ride to
Madagascar (which they cycled around for three months), a flight to Mauritius
then to Kenya from where they cycled through Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda,
Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. From there they took a flight to Ankara and cycled
to Istanbul.
Generosity of strangers
Though the biggest challenge was not having money, this didn’t stop them
from getting what they needed.
Nathim says: “In Madagascar we went to a mosque only to be told we
couldn’t sleep there. But then someone took us to his home and we stayed with
him for two whole months! We practically became part of his family, sharing
meals with them.”
Nathim feels this heightened his reliance on, and trust in, Allah. “This
generosity is something you can’t predict. You can’t say ‘I’ll leave here this
morning and get this, this and this.’ You don’t know what is coming your way.
Sometimes you get your provision for the day, sometimes you don’t. With or
without money, if you make a move, if you get out there, things happen for
you.”
On numerous occasions when it seemed despair could set in, simple but
remarkable things happened for them.
“We cycled from Nairobi to Mombasa. One morning we didn’t have any food
so we did about 50K and we could feel we were in trouble: our bodies were
shaking. We were in the middle of nowhere. The sun was blazing. Then a car
pulls up. We look at the car and we see a can of Coca Cola and Fanta coming
out.
“I cycle up to the car, take the cans and rub them all over my face and
then the guys in the car give us a bottle of water. We gulped down the drinks.
We continued and then the same thing happens. We’re dehydrated so we stop.
We’re just talking. Next moment, a truck pulls up in front of us and the driver
asks: ‘Where you going’? We say Mombasa and he says, ‘come, I’ll take you’.
Just like that.”
Enjoying Ethiopia
One of the most important aspects of the journey was experiencing
different cultures, the most enjoyable of which was Ethiopia’s.
“The food is amazing, and the hospitality. People sitting in a
restaurant see you walking past and they look at you and invite you to the
table. They don’t know you but everyday, every single day this happens. When
you engage with the people there they give one hundred per cent eye contact and
attention and try and figure out what it is you want. And of course, the women
in Ethiopia. They are beautiful. It is not this typical Barbie beauty they put
on TV. It is original beauty,” Nathim shares.
Beyond the initial challenges of accommodation and money, others
included the climate (that Sudanese sun is harsh, brother! Nathim exclaims),
losing a bike in Egypt, stomach ailments and language barriers.
Being back in the developed world has deepened their appreciation for
simple things such as hot running water.
Reflecting on what they gained most from the trip Abdullah says: “I saw
I was in the hands of Allah. I had to turn to him for everything I needed and
that is what I did. I saw my duas sometimes being accepted instantly. I prayed
for money and it came from someone I didn’t know. I stopped worrying. I was
living in the moment.”
For Nathim, it was seeing how “life has its own rhythm. It’s not about
these man-made systems. In some parts of the northern world these are so strong
it’s impacting people and making them inhuman. Whereas in Africa people still
have a lot of the human spirit in them.”
Keeping the human spirit alive isn’t easy in this day and age. In this
context the idea of cycling from one continent to another with no money and no
planning doesn’t seem so radical after all.
Sunday, 1 December 2019
Thursday, 21 November 2019
I read the Quran to learn about terrorist beliefs but ended up becoming Muslim
I
read the Quran to learn about terrorist beliefs but ended up becoming Muslim
By
Jennifer R Williams
All American Muslim
If you were to pass me on the street, you would never suspect I’m a Muslim: I don’t wear hijab. I have platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. And I am heavily tattooed. I grew up in Texas and was raised Southern Baptist. I use the word “y’all” a lot—and not ironically. But I am Muslim. I also speak Arabic and hold a Master’s degree in International Security with a focus on terrorism and the Middle East.
Several years ago, I realized that although I had long studied, analyzed, and written about Islamic political theory and how jihadist ideologues like Osama bin Laden use the Qur’an to justify their heinous acts of violence, I had never actually read the Qur’an. So I read it—and what I found in its pages changed my life. I found answers to questions about faith and belief and morality that had been plaguing me since my youth. I found the connection to God I thought I had lost. And seven years ago, I converted to Islam.
Just to be clear: I detest the twisted interpretations of Islam espoused by the likes of Al Qaeda and ISIS just as much today as I did before I converted—in fact, probably more so, since now I see it not only as a sick bastardization of a beautiful religion, but a sick bastardization of my beautiful religion.
When I read the Qur’an, I find a God who is beneficent, who is merciful, and who cherishes mankind. I find a religion that encourages independent thought, compassion for humanity, and social justice. The jihadis claim to love these same things about Islam, but have somehow decided that the best way to share God’s message of mercy and compassion with the world is to blow up mosques and behead humanitarian aid workers. Great plan, guys.
Three years ago, the hashtag “#MuslimApologies” began trending on Twitter. The hashtag was a tongue-in-cheek response to those—such as right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham—who, in the wake of the beheadings of Westerners by ISIS, have questioned why Muslims have not been more vocal about denouncing terrorism carried out in the name of Islam (except that many have). Tired of constantly being asked to apologize for the acts of a few vile individuals who twist Islam to justify their barbarism, Muslims on Twitter decided to take a humorous stand—by apologizing for everything: the Twilight saga, World Wars I and II, that Pluto is no longer a planet, and, my personal favourite, that Mufasa had to die in The Lion King. Some also used the hashtag to sarcastically apologize for the important contributions Islamic culture has made to the world, from algebra to coffee to the camera obscura.
Of course, I wanted to get in on the fun. After tweeting my sarcastic apology for the terrible ending of the television show LOST, I decided to tweet something a little more serious: a 140-character summary of my conversion story:
After sending my tweet, I went to bed. When I awoke the next morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my humble little tweet had been retweeted numerous times and I had picked up dozens of new followers. Several people—almost all Muslims—had responded expressing their happiness for me and welcoming me to Islam. So, that was nice. I also got a few trolls, of course: people telling me I was brainwashed, trying to convince me that the CIA created ISIS, or asking me if I had engaged in female genital mutilation yet. That was less nice, but to be expected; it is Twitter, after all.
Then things took an unexpected turn. My tweet went viral—at last check, it had been retweeted more than 11,300 times—and I soon began to notice a disturbing trend: of the thousands of people who were retweeting and following me, many of them had the black flag of ISIS as their Twitter profile photos. Others had pictures of themselves holding swords, standing in front of the black ISIS flag. Uh-oh.
Then the Saudis showed up: men whose profile pictures showed them in traditional Saudi dress (sometimes behind the wheel of a swanky SUV or insanely expensive sports car) started replying to my tweet and asking to speak to me in private. One guy told me how beautiful I would look in hijab. Another just straight up asked me to marry him.
So I’m famous. In Saudi Arabia. Great.
Not that I have anything against Saudis, of course. I’ve known plenty of perfectly lovely Saudis, and I would be making the same mistake as American Islamophobes if I painted all Saudis as Islamic fundamentalists. But there is no denying that something is rotten in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The ruling al-Sauds have given a lot of power and influence to hardline Islamic fundamentalists within their society in order to secure their rule. Among the results of this dubious bargain is that Saudi-funded Salafi-Wahhabi madrassas around the world preach hate and the Saudi state has beheaded far more people in the last several months than ISIS has—for crimes ranging from adultery to apostasy to “sorcery.” So it’s still a little disconcerting that I’ve suddenly become a big hit in Saudi Arabia.
It’s clear that my tweet about becoming Muslim struck a nerve with a lot of Muslims, both here in America and in the broader Muslim world. Non-Muslims sometimes don’t realize how much hatred and negativity gets thrown at Muslims and how utterly soul crushing it can be to have to defend yourself and your beliefs on a daily basis, and it’s really nice to see someone saying something positive about Islam.
At the same time, though, it’s precisely the actions of ISIS and their followers and the words of intolerance emanating from the Salafi camp that provoke this reaction against Muslims. And I, for one, do not appreciate having my conversion story used to attract more people to a repugnant ideology that spawns suicide bombings and beheadings.
About the Author
Jennifer R Williams lives in Washington, D.C. and is a foreign editor at Vox.com. Before joining Vox,she was a senior researcher at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
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