Book on Islam Pluralism Nationhood by Maulana Azad

November 23, 2013, 9:17 am

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Here is a piece of good news! Alhamdu Lillah! Praise the Lord.

URL - http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/11/book-on-islam-pluralism-nationhood-by.html

A new book called "Islam, Pluralism and Nationhood, a legacy of Maulana Azad" was presented to Vice President of India, Dr. Mohd. Hamid Ansari today in New Delhi. I am delighted to share a few random notes with my fellow Muslims and fellow humanity about my own experience with Pluralism. I need to speed up and get the book on Pluralism, my version.

One of the most ridiculed items is the pluralism prayers that I recite at City Halls and most of the public gatherings. Just as we (Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews and others) don't like bigoted politicians, why should others like bigoted Muslims?

Would you care for a politician or a civic leader who greets the audience with Namaste, Satsri Akaal, Shalom, Buddha Namo, Aho Piva and excludes Salam? Should fellow Americans elect a bigoted Muslim for a public office who excludes others?

I am recalling criticism and curses heaped on me fifteen years ago for nearly a ten years for talking about Islam being a pluralistic faith. I will not name the people, but some big Imams and big time Muslim organizational leaders have ridiculed me in writing, and I happen to receive those emails by mistake. The very same people are talking about pluralism now, and I welcome them, but I hope they are sincere and not for any gains.

Here are the two paragraphs in particular they maligned me for, and if you are a moderate Muslim you don't see the problem with this, but if you are on the right, you become the ticketing agent and give free tickets to hell.

Dear Creator of the universe, please accept our gratitude in every name we collectively call upon you; Manito, Yahweh, Elahi, Ishwar, Allah, Mahavira, Buddha, Wahe Guru, Ahura Mazda, mother earth and Jesus Christ.

We are one nation under you, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We are represented by every race, nationality, ethnicity, language, culture and religion. Collectively, we see you as one, none and many and in every form; male, female, genderless and non-existent, being and non-being, nameless and with innumerable names.

We have ways to go in understanding what it really means to call Allah, the Rabbul Aalameen? or the Prophet, the Rahmatul Aalameen? (God of the Universe and Mercy to the Universe)

My fellow Muslim leaders don't get that, unfortunately, just like the right wing Republicans run the show while the good moderate majority remains quiet, the right wing Muslims run the show and the good moderate muslim majority remains quiet. The good news is the moderate Muslims are speaking up and may God give them more power to speak up.

Things are coming around, a few years ago, in an award ceremony, I spoke.... We are yet to understand and communicate the purpose of religion which is to build cohesive societies where no human has to live in fear of the other. Our conflicts arise from our arrogance.

Let me proclaim on this day, that my religion is beautiful to me as yours is to you, my religion brings peace and tranquility to me and causes me to see the sameness of purpose in other religions, and now this is the difficult part, that I have addressed twice with a few Imams in 2007, and at the Parliament of Worlds Religions in 2009 -"I will not claim that my religion is superior to yours, if I did that, it would amount to arrogance - arrogance breeds conflicts. So, I hope, one day, all of us can proclaim that with all our humility -"to you is your beautiful religion and to me is my beautiful religion." Humility forges relationships and peace. "

The other gentleman, Larry James, chief executive officer of Central Dallas Ministries, also received the Religion Communicator Award . Congratulated me on his way to the stage and said, he could not say that yet. I said, Larry, I hope one of these years, all of us can say that.

I believe, many of us are willing to say that now with all sincerity, acknowledging the divinity of other religions is not going to diminish an ounce of your religion, but rather enhance the idea of oneness of creation, creator and humanity.

It is not just Muslims, but most of the Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and others are not willing to say that either. If we can get to that to that point, the world peace gets closer. If we can learn to respect the otherness of others, and accept the God given uniqueness of each one of the 7 billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

Thanks to Pope Francis, my new religious mentor, he will say that, and will do that before his first anniversary, I am following his path, he has done everything I mentioned in my March 23rd welcome, with that others will follow. I beleive my other religious mentors like Bishop Tutu, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, Barack Obama and Aga Khan would not have an issue stating that when the time is right. These men are self-confident about their faith.

Islam is indeed all about Pluralism - i.e., respecting the otherness of others; to you is your way and to me is my way, and that is with respect without denigrating the other. The above statement "that my religion is not superior" is embedded in Sura Kafirun, and every Muslim ought to say that. There is no compulsion in faith. No matter who you are or what you believe, as long as you are good to fellow humans, God assures his grace.

Prophet Muhammad remains the first religious man who initiated the interfaith dialogue. No one before had the opportunity to do that. He set the tone of that dialogue; to respect the otherness of others (pluralism). Many a Muslims are simply not aware of it.

Islam is not about arrogance, an arrogant person is least liked by God. Islam is about humility. Humility builds bridges and arrogance kills the relationships.

Islam is about creating peaceful societies where no human has to live in fear of others. If we just look at the Prophet's work - it was all about letting people live their own lives (Madinah Charter). Islam is not about creating barriers and living exclusively in shells, it is about living openly with every one around you as God has created us into many communities and nations and the best one amongst us is the one who learns about each other. As we learn about each other, conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

I am glad this book came out and Insha Allah, more will be coming from fellow Muslims including this Muslim.

Mohd Hamid Ansari being presented a book Islam Pluralism Nationhood Legacy of Maulana Azad - Posted on November 23, 2013

http://savedelete.com/mohd-hamid-ansari-being-presented-a-book-islam-pluralism-nationhood-legacy-of-maulana-azad.html

The Vice President, Mohd. Hamid Ansari being presented a book entitled “Islam Pluralism Nationhood Legacy of Maulana Azad“ by Prof. Mushirul Hasan and Jayasen Gupta, in New Delhi on Nov. 22, 2013.

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

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Phony Muslimness among Muslim boys in Schools and Colleges in UK - World Muslim Congress.com

November 23, 2013, 4:29 pm

≫ Next: Banning Islam in Angola and dropping Holocaust Teaching in Britain are lies.

≪ Previous: Book on Islam Pluralism Nationhood by Maulana Azad

I am concerned about the segregated seating arrangements in colleges and Universities for seminars and other educational activities organized by Muslim Students Associations in the United Kingdom.

Unlike the Students Association in the United States, where both men and women manage and participate, the MSA's in UK seem to be run over by the boys. These boys become instantaneously Sanctimonious Muslims when they have a responsibility to manage a Muslim loaded event. The more they "control" women to go sit elsewhere, the greater the Muslim they become! What a phony Muslimness!

It's not only the boys, some of the Imams who come around to give Sermons at special events, invariably make a comment to women sitting somewhere in the darkness in the back to quit gossiping! Darn it, when your lecture is so idiotic, men do the same, either gossip or go to their i-phones and Samsungs. I am glad I don't go to these events, but when I do, I will tear them apart for such an abusive and disrespectful comment towards women. Remember, our silence gives them permission to continue doing the wrong. Speak up; the other goats will jump in later.

Steering women and men to different sitting areas in the name of Islam needs to go. A man or a woman should have the freedom to choose, where he or she is comfortable to sit, nothing should be forced on. There should be no compulsion.

Do they teach that Islam is about regulating your own behavior to be a kind, gentle, truthful, trustworthy and caring and just individual, the Amin, as the Prophet was called. Indeed, that should be the first foundational Sunnah for Muslims to follow. Islam is not about controlling others personal behavior. Islam is about freedom - you are individually rewarded or deprived with the grace of God for your acts, neither the Muslim Students Association nor the Mufti of your town is even remotely accountable for your acts. Even Prophet Muhammad, let alone your parents, spouse, siblings, or your Imam will not come to your rescue in your reflective solitude or the Day of Judgment. Prophet Muhammad did not assign the responsibility to teach Quran to anyone either.

The Hijab or segregation is a cultural product of predominantly Muslim nations, there is no sanction for it in Islam. The very first and foremost place of worship does not have segregation, even to this day. Men and women perform Hajj together, God wants all of us together without distinction.

Muslims living in UK, US, France, Canada or elsewhere have their own culture, or modified culture without any reluctance. Unlike Saudi Arabia, where women are taken care of, the women living in other nations have to learn to live on their own, earn their own and support their kids if they have to, and their culture should be based on their needs and not the needs of Saudi Arabia.

Shame on those parents who make their daughters dependent on men, and when that man dies, or runs off - it puts the woman in a difficult situation. Is that how the parents care for their daughters? She should be free and able to handle her own affairs. The prophet had said to Fatima, you will not get a free ticket to paradise just because you are my daughter; you have to earn it like everyone else.

If a woman is trained to live in segregation how would she handle in situations when her father, brother, husband or son is not around. Love is not making a dependent out of the loved ones. If we love, yes, if we love our loved ones, we make them independent, free and able to stand on their own in contingencies with the least suffering.

By the way the stories are similar with Sikhs, Hindus, Jains, Christians and others from Asia.

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

How do universities deal with gender segregation?

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/may/27/gender-segregation-university-voluntary-equality

University chiefs are struggling to decide whether they should try to stop events where women can't sit with men

Some wish to sit only with their own sex while others regard this as 'gender apartheid'. How can universities win? Photograph: Jeremy Pardoe/newsteam.co.uk

"The day before the event, we got an email to say it was segregated and we were very shocked," says Razana Abdul, a Muslim student, who is at university in London. She's speaking about an event at University College London in March, run by an organisation called the Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA)."I wanted to sit with my boyfriend. And there was a man ushering men to the men's side and a woman ushering women to the women's side." She was upset by the experience. "It was gender apartheid," she says.

Universities are struggling with the ethical dilemma of how far they can or should intervene to prevent distress caused by such situations. How can a university's equality and diversity policy be enforced at events where some audience members want to sit only with their own gender and others wish to exercise their right to sit wherever they want?
Reports of a gender-segregated event run by Leicester University's student Islamic society, together with media coverage of the UCL event, prompted monitoring group Student Rights, which works to counter university extremism and is funded by private donations, to re-analyse the 180 campus-based events it had logged between March 2012 and March 2013 as "of concern" because of the nature of the speaker.

Its report states that 46 out of the 180 events at 21 separate university campuses "were found to have either explicitly promoted segregation by gender, or implied that this would be the case, with six of these cancelled before taking place".

All the events were either organised by student Islamic societies or were focused on issues of interest to Muslims. There is now considerable concern - including from the report's author, full-time Student Rights researcher Rupert Sutton - that subsequent media reporting of these findings made out that gender segregation was itself evidence of radicalism. "It's important that this issue isn't conflated with extremism itself," says Sutton. "We as an organisation are not conflating gender segregation with extremism."

"It's not right to say that any kind of gender segregation is necessarily wrong," says Jo Attwooll, policy adviser at the vice-chancellors' group Universities UK, which has just launched the Safe Campus Communities website, offering higher education institutions advice on how to exercise their legal responsibilities on safeguarding for students and staff.

A good indication of the sensitivity around gender segregation is that universities are not keen to discuss it openly. Of the seven universities named in the report that were contacted by Education Guardian - Aston, Queen Mary, London South Bank, Portsmouth, Kingston, Leicester and UCL - only UCL was willing to put forward a senior member of staff to answer questions. The others issued statements.

There is clear tension between the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 - which says universities must help to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different groups - and their duties under the Education Act 1986, which says university premises must not be barred to anyone on the grounds of their beliefs or views. This was brought in partly to stop Labour-controlled student unions denying a platform to Conservative student associations and the speakers they wanted to bring in. But campaigners now argue that universities hide behind the 1986 act to avoid antagonising faith groups, or opening themselves to possible litigation by giving equality legislation higher priority - in the case of gender segregation, this would mean saying plainly that this must not happen on university premises.
The phrase institutions are now hanging on to for dear life is "voluntary segregation", meaning that separating the sexes is permitted, even if some of those attending wish to sit with the opposite sex.

Leicester University says in its statement: "Where there is a public event and individuals attending wish, by their own free choice, to sit separately in the same hall, then that is a matter for them." Aston, LSBU, Portsmouth and Kingston follow the same line.

Following the March event that upset some students at UCL, the university banned the IERA from campus. The vice-provost, Rex Knight, points to the form of words agreed by UCL that is now sent to anyone wishing to book rooms on campus. While enforced segregation will not be permitted, UCL states that "it is acceptable for individuals attending events to choose to sit with members of their own gender. If individuals attending an event wish to segregate themselves on a voluntary basis, it is not acceptable for other members of the audience to compel them to mix, and to do so may constitute harassment."

This might sound like a reasonable compromise, but Abdul points out that voluntary self-segregation has serious limitations, most importantly for Muslim women like herself who may feel it is impossible to go against the flow. "If you don't want to be segregated, there's social pressure. I do actually regret not standing up and going and sitting in the men's section as a form of protest." For mixed groups [at the UCL event] there were just two rows in a huge auditorium made available for "couples". Abdul says anyone choosing to sit there would have been very obviously rejecting the "norm" being imposed. "We'd look like the evil ones, choosing to sit there in the middle," she explains.

Universities, she says, are anxious not to "discriminate against Muslim people's practices, but this is a minority of Muslims. I'm a Muslim, an Asian woman, and I felt intimidated."

It's a good point, agrees Knight, but it is a view that university senior management has to hold in balance with others. "I was contacted by other female Muslim students who said they'd felt very upset that some male students had tried to sit with them," he says. "One would hope that common sense and good behaviour would prevail. We are making our view clear to organisers that no pressure should be made to 'voluntarily' segregate."
PhD student Michael Jathe, who also attended the UCL event, says universities must define very clearly what they mean by "voluntary" so that heavy-handed "encouragement" to segregate does not creep in. "I believe some religious groups are trying to carve out areas of public space where they can set the rules. This is why universities have equality and diversity policies."

Attwooll says the approach many universities now take as part of their room-booking process is to ensure their policy on equality and diversity is sent out and that organisations say they are willing to abide by its conditions. Bradford is one institution that goes further - it explicitly requires that "the advice of the Equality Unit must be sought before planning a segregated or single-sex event or part-event."

Universities need to arm themselves with facts about events taking place, says Attwooll. "As part of a booking process for external speakers, UUK would say that there should be an examination of how that event is to be run," she says. "Groups that may have a desire for there to be some sort of segregation, whether enforced or voluntary, should be entirely transparent about that, and allow the university to make a judgment."
If gender segregation becomes more prevalent at university events, with some students wanting it and others deeply opposed, vice-chancellors may struggle to find a solution that keeps everyone happy - and themselves within the law.
Some names have been changed

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Banning Islam in Angola and dropping Holocaust Teaching in Britain are lies.

November 25, 2013, 6:21 pm

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Mike Ghouse
www.WorldMuslimCongress.com
November 25, 2013. Dallas, Texas – In behalf of the World Muslim Congress and the Foundation for Pluralism, Mike Ghouse released the following note today. Both the organizations are committed to building cohesive societies where no human has to live in fear of the other

A mosque and a minaret were shown torn down in Angola, they
were pictures from 2008 Palestine and elsewhere, but not Angola

Muslim students in UK falsely ascribed as offended with Holocaust teaching.

Eight years ago, there was a rumor that Iran was making the lives of Bahá’ís, Zoroastrians and Jews miserable, a bunch of us interfaith guys in Dallas, wrote a petition and send off the letters. One of our friends from San Francisco called his friend, a Jewish Member of the Parliament in Iran, and found out that it was a hoax. Of course, Iran has made life difficult for people of other faiths including the harassment and pending death penalty for Pastor Naderkhani on the count of Apostasy, an un-Islamic practice in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This goes against the God given freedom in Quran 2:256, “Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error."

Five years ago Fox News’ Maria Arita in Dallas called me up to inquire about the Muslim push to ban Holocaust education in France – thank God, for authenticity, I called my Jewish friends Bernie Mayoff and Dallas Holocaust Museum director, late Elliott Dlin, who verified that it was indeed a hoax. Thanks to Maria for killing that rumor. I wish all Fox News reporters followed that example, imagine the damage it would have done to the fragile Jewish-Muslim relationship.

A few months ago, and again now, the rumor has it that the “Islamists” want to drop the teaching of Holocaust in UK, with an emphasis that it offends Muslim students. In fact the examiner headlines, “British schools drop Holocaust from history lessons so as not to offend Muslims.” http://www.examiner.com/article/british-schools-drop-holocaust-from-history-lessons-so-as-not-to-offend-muslimsThat is a lie again, http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust.asp#tx5BaFtASgSJ3qWD.99

Now yesterday, the big bad news made headlines – that Angola has banned Islam and dismantling Mosques (http://www.africanglobe.net/africa/african-state-angola-bans-islam-mosques-destroyed/). Then I read another item where a Moroccan Muslim insurance tycoon has invested in Angola, those two contradictory news items did not make any sense. Now comes the news, after someone verified with the Angolan Embassy – that the news is not true (http://www.ibtimes.com/angola-denies-it-banned-islam-destroyed-mosques-1484898). I have not been unable to log on to a few websites, nor am I able to reach the Embassy. I will pursue it until I know the absolute facts. I have called on Russian Embassy when they attempted to Ban Bhagvad Gita or Italian Embassy when a nutty Italian Mayor attempted to ban celebrations of Ganesh (Hindu) Festival.

A few brutes are happy that Islam was banned in Angola, and some of the thrill seekers will be happier if Muslims in Angola are massacred. Of course, there are an equal number of creeps among Muslims who might be thinking of hurting Angola. We pray that God gives us a heart to feel the pain of others, an eye for an eye will makes us all blind, as Mahatma Gandhi had said. No Muslim is supposed to take his own or others life, yet we have loonies who do that. Of course there are equal number of Hindus, Jews and Christians violate the teachings of their faith.

To de-stereotype ourselves, consider these numbers. New York had 1,092 Rapes in 2011, and 515 Murders. Is it fair to proclaim that the New Yorkers are rapists and murderers? That is exactly what these dummies are telling by calling Muslims are terrorists, and all the terrorists are Muslims. Indeed, all the 515 Murderers were New Yorkers. This non-sense defies common sense.

These lies do a lot of damage, some of the right wingers continue with with mal-intent to make villains out of Muslims. Remember, “Injustice to one is injustice to all” (MLK). For you to live without apprehension, the people around you need must be free from your ill-will as well.

I expected Sean Hannity to call me and debate with Pamela Geller or Brigitte Gabriel, who are probably happy to see Muslims getting stripped from their fundamental human rights. A true human rights activist would stand up for the rights of all humanity, no matter who it is. I know Hannity would speak up against it as he has spoken against the stupidity of Pastor Terry Jones.

When I heard the news, my first response was to take a deep breath and meditate. Is this the kind of world we want, where no human feels safe to eat, drink, wear and believe whatever he or she wants to believe? It comes in the heels of another event that does the opposite, gives a sense of security to a people who lived in perpetual anxiety for over three millenniums; the Jews with the Iranian deal. What needs to be done about it? How would Pope Francis, Aga Khan, Bishop Tutu and true to God religious leaders would deal with this. What is the guidance from Jesus, Muhammad, Gandhi, MLK and others? I will be writing the full report in a few days.

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Aga Khan and Malala - the Muslim role models

December 3, 2013, 12:16 pm

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URL - http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/aga-khan-and-malala-muslim-role-models.html

Every child, teen and an adult has someone he or she looks up to, and wants to-be-like that person and eventually becomes one. Indeed, good role models are a key to the success of a civil society.

I have been studying religious pluralism and civil societies for the last twenty years, and have found a sense of regret among Muslims for the dearth of role models. Invariably they compare themselves with the Jewish community more often than they care to admit. At least twice a year, an email makes the rounds showing the innumerable Nobel laureates among the tiny Jewish community versus the negligible numbers among the big Muslim community. It almost appears that they cannot move forward without some one leading them.

Don't despair, there is hope, we have a few good men and women who are great role models.

In the last 100 years we have had legends like Syed Ahmed Khan, Allama Iqbal, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and others who have created institutions of learning or left a legacy of critical thinking. They were not only heroes for Muslims, but for others as well.

These individuals followed the foundational Sunnah of the prophet to be Amins, the truthful, trustworthy, Just and without barriers between them and people of other faiths and traditions. They contributed towards the common good of humanity. Indeed, Prophet Muhammad was called Amin by fellow Citizens who were Jewish, Christian and Pagans. That should be our model; to be contributors and be the Amins of the society.

In the last 50 years, we have had a few great men and women, but we did not accord them the place they deserved. It’s time for us to recognize them for their contributions and their legacy in building better societies for humanity.

There are plenty of men and women in religion, business, arts, sports, music, entertainment and academic fields, but very few in civil societies.

The following men and women have created enduring values to last for generations to come, it is their legacy. I am embarrassed that I could not come up with more names from around 56 Muslims nations, but I welcome them all.

Abdurrahman Wahid (planted the vision of Madinah like society),
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (Critical thinking in Islam),
Malala Yousafzai (Role model for women),
Aga Khan (Role Model for Universal human development) ,
Benazir Bhutto (a symbol of Democracy),
Muhammad Yunus (an economic model of uplifting the down trodden)
Aamir Khan (Cultural Pluralism and his Satyameva Jayate Series),
Abdus Salam (Physicist and Nobel Laureate),
Abdus Sattar Edhi (Charity),
Al-Waleed bin Talal (Research in Education)
Abusaleh Shariff (Solutions for up-liftment of minorities )

Abusaleh Shariff is relatively less known than the others, but his pioneering research work about Indian Muslims has become the foundation for economic, educational, social and statistical models for planning societies, and finding pluralistic solutions for the majoritarian-minoritarian conflict mitigation in a given society.

Gamal Abdel Nasser could have been one of the heroes, had he succeeded in creating a value for Arab Unification, he could not make it. Mahathir Muhammad could have been an economic hero, but his work was time-bound and not timeless, and he did not leave anything impactful other than the rhetoric. What did Yasser Arafat leave behind? I am not sure about the legacy of Muhammad Ali Jinnah- is anyone following his vision other than hanging his pictures on event walls? General Pervaz Musharraf had all the potential to re-establish Jinnah's vision, a secular pluralistic Islamic model nation – but he blew it.

Even though Kings Abdullah of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Muhammad Ali, Dilip Kumar or Shahrukh Khan are big names, they have not contributed to the common good of humanity, once they are gone, they are gone. Would they be legends in Muslim history? Are they Amins of the society at large? We need to discuss.

I am glad at least Malala and Aga Khan have been recognized worldwide, and their work is not restricted to just one community, but most people around the globe will look up to them for what they represent.

It is our duty to honor and cherish individuals who have dedicated their lives in building bridges between communities. Their pioneering spirit in facilitating communities to know and to respect each other must be appreciated.

I urge fellow Muslims to work on writing about these men and women, and how their work can last for centuries to come. Can we include them in our school text books, Islamic social education at Mosques and private schools? They are our role models, aren't they?

To be a Muslimis to be a peacemaker, one who mitigates conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence of humanity. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and matter.# # #

Remarks by His Highness the Aga Khan at the Presentation of the Gold Medal by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Ottawa

URL- http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/hh-aga-khans-speech-at-royal.html

Mike Ghouse is a Muslim speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, Islam, interfaith and other topics. He is committed to nurturing pluralistic values embedded in Islam and building cohesive Societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day, all his writings are at www.TheGhouseDiary.com

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HH Aga Khan's speech at Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

December 4, 2013, 11:29 am

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Remarks by His Highness the Aga Khan at the Presentation of the Gold Medal by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Ottawa

URL- http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/hh-aga-khans-speech-at-royal.html

Source: Barkat Ali

27 November 2013
President Frank and leaders of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada,
Madame Clarkson
Excellencies
Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Monsieur le Président, je voudrais vous remercier pour l’honneur que votre institut me fait aujourd’hui. Je remercie Monsieur Baird de m’avoir nommé pour recevoir ce prix si prestigieux et de ces paroles élogieuses.

Je suis profondément flatté de recevoir votre médaille d‘or, tout d’abord à cause des personnalités qui me la remettent – mais aussi par l’esprit d’excellence que votre Institut représente. C’est aussi un grand honneur si l‘on considère la qualité des récipiendaires depuis sa création en 1907; je suis fier d’en faire partie a présent. Je suis d’autant plus heureux qu’il s’agisse d’une récompense canadienne – car comme vous le savez, mes sentiments d’amitié à l’égard du Canada perdurent depuis longtemps.

You may know that I recently became a citizen of Canada - at the gracious invitation of the Canadian government. That honour made me feel even more closely a part of the Canadian family - even as this honour today makes me feel more closely a member of Canada’s architectural family. Thank you.

I have often been asked what has caused my interest in architecture. I think it is right to begin by clarifying that my definition of architecture goes beyond a concern for buildings designed by architects. I see architecture as embracing practically all aspects – all aspects - of our entire built environment.

Let me also explain that in Islam, the role of an Imam is not limited to the domain of faith. It also includes a deep engagement in the world, in all of the wide and complex issues that affect our quality of life. Among those issues, not many have more impact than architecture and the buildings in which we spend, at all ages, so many days and nights of our lives.

Is it not true that the quality of our lives is fundamentally shaped by the spaces in which we live, spaces that provide physical security, and spaces where we seek spiritual enrichment? They are spaces where we work, and where we pause from work; where we expand our minds and restore our health, places where we congregate and where we meditate; and they are places where we are born, as well as places of final rest.

Some are spaces we may only visit briefly - but where we learn how others live - from the extremes of abject poverty, for example, to the extremes of great wealth.

People everywhere - independent of their particular background or educational level - almost instinctively understand the importance of place, and how the spaces of our lives are shaped and reshaped - for better or for worse. I thought about this universal capacity for comprehension again, these past weeks, as the world reacted to photographs of the Haiyan typhoon in the Philippines.

This universal sensitivity to changes in the built environment also helps explain the profound impact of architecture on the way we think about our lives. Few other forces, in my view, have such transformational potential.

I am pleased that you could see a brief video about some of our architectural projects through the years and around the world - both new projects and historic restorations, some of them serving our own community and our Network activities, some done in partnership with other public and private institutions, and some that have been selected for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for over nearly four decades.

What I would like to describe in particular this evening, however, is my experience with Canadian architecture. The story goes back to 1972, when the then President of Uganda, Marshall Idi Amin, expelled all the Asians from Uganda no matter what their faith, their citizenship, or position in society. Many thousands left Uganda in a matter of days; most took nothing more with them than their brains and the languages they spoke. Most members of my community, the Ismailis, came to Canada, while a minority who had retained their British citizenship at Ugandan independence went to the United Kingdom. It was one of the ugliest experiences of ethnic cleansing in those times.

The leaders of the Ismaili communities in the UK and Canada consulted with one another and with me as to how to respond to this forced migration. There was unanimity that wherever we would settle we would never become a demotivated, marginalized minority and that we would, instead, demonstrate the will and the capacity to rebuild our future. We therefore decided to build new spaces for the gathering of our communities, and for the practice of their faith, in the countries that were welcoming us.

But we also agreed on one more thing. These new buildings, which we decided to call Ismaili Centres, had to reflect our aspirations for the future, rather than the tragedy of our recent past. We saw them as structures where we could receive other communities and institutions in a dignified manner, and where we could demystify our faith - which was sometimes badly misunderstood. They would be symbols of new hope, replacing past pain.

It was against this background that we built the two first Ismaili Centres in the industrialized world, the first in London in 1985 - and the second in Vancouver. In both cities, we built on the best sites we could find, and we engaged some of the most respected architects to join us.
As we proceeded, in England, and here in Canada, we were also aware of the risk that our cultural continuity might be eroded over time. The Ismailis were a global people, after all, with roots in many parts of the diverse Islamic world. We decided to build, therefore, in our own, varied architectural languages, often making a synthesis of them, adapting them to the requirements of younger generations, and applying them as well, to the open spaces around our new buildings.

In taking this approach, we were comforted to know that Canada welcomed a pluralistic approach to questions of cultural continuity. We knew, for example, that Bruno Freschi, who designed the Ismaili Centre in Vancouver, had earlier designed a gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship. He reflected Canada’s practice of drawing strength from cultural diversity, as well as from universal inspirations such as faith and family, and the celebration of great events and great people. This combined embrace of both the particular and the universal has made Canada one of the most respected pluralist societies in today’s heavily fractured world.
We continue to build in Canada. Soon a second Ismaili Centre, now nearing completion in Toronto, will join the first one in Vancouver, making Canada the only country in the foreseeable future with two Ismaili Centres, one in the West and another in the East. For this work, we retained another great architect, Charles Correa, who was born into a Christian family that originally lived in Goa. He, too, has designed for many faiths, including Hindu and Christian.

The story is similar for another new Toronto building, The Aga Khan Museum. It has been designed by a remarkable international partnership with one of the great Japanese professionals, Fumihiko Maki, and a major Canadian firm, Moriyama and Teshima.
In all this work, we continue, of course, to honor our Islamic architectural inheritance. That inheritance has been shaped by many forces - climate, accessible building materials, available technologies and others. But I believe that the Islamic faith has played a particular role in the development of Islamic architectural expression. For our faith constantly reminds us to observe and be thankful for the beauty of the world and the universe around us, and our responsibility and obligation, as good stewards of God’s creation, to leave the world in a better condition than we found it.

The garden is, in this context, a particularly important space in Islamic cultures, the Moghul garden in urban environments, or the Bustan in rural environments. Bringing such beautiful spaces to Canada is one of our intended contributions to Canadian landscape. An example is the new park in Toronto which will surround the Aga Khan Museum and the Ismaili Centre, as well as new projects in Edmonton and Burnaby, and our endeavour to link area development to our rebuilding of Ottawa’s War Museum for the Global Centre for Pluralism.

The future will present us with ever-evolving architectural challenges - urbanization, water management, air pollution, protection from manmade and natural hazards and the efficient use of limited resources. Men and women of recognized talent worldwide must be mobilized to meet these challenges - as the RAIC has done so impressively, including your efforts to attract “Broadly Experienced Foreign Architects” - the B-E-F-A programme. Not only have you been able to streamline the licensing here of internationally trained architects, but you have also reaffirmed a global ethic of openness and cooperation. Let me conclude by emphasizing again the potential of Architecture to communicate across the boundaries that may otherwise divide us. Architecture provides us with ways to express that, which is distinctive in our own experiences, even as it responds to what is universally human. And this, above all, it seems to me, is why “Architecture Matters” - to use the phrase with which your organization is so strongly identified.

The language of architecture speaks in different idioms, but it also provides powerful connections, resonating in landscapes both urban and rural, global and local, monumental and humble, secular and spiritual. An “Architecture of Pluralism” is one that will encourage all of us to listen to one another and to learn from one another, with a deep sense of humility and a realization that diversity itself is a gift of the Divine.

The work that you do at the RAIC is more than simply mattering. You are shaping forces that influence the essence of human life. And this is the fundamental reason that I am so deeply honoured by your recognizing me today.

Thank you.

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Who is a Muslim?

December 4, 2013, 2:20 pm

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Everyday, there are debates and discussion everywhere about Hijab, beard, Muslim garb etc. We need to put an end to this by focusing our discussion on the issue. I hope, we can get the Shura council and Imams sign a declaration to put an end to this conflict. Let these be one's personal choice and not religiously mandated.

Declaration of Muslimness

1. Modesty is Islamic
2. Hijab and its formats are cultural and personal
3. The form of Hijab is woman’s choice
4. There shall be no compulsion in what one wears
5. There is no such thing as Muslim Garb
6. Beard is not a requirement
7. Headgear is not a requirement
8. There is no such thing as a Muslim Name
9. Being Amin is a requirement

www.WorldMuslimCongress.com

.........................................................................................................
To be a Muslim is to be a peacemaker, one who mitigates conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence of humanity. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and matter. Mike Ghouse is a Muslim speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, Islam, interfaith and other topics. He is committed to nurturing pluralistic values embedded in Islam and building cohesive Socieities and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day, all his writings are at www.TheGhouseDiary.com

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The Islamic Center of Irving is making a difference in the community

December 4, 2013, 4:51 pm

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Jackie, good job!

Your report is the case of doing things whole heartedly or not doing at all. I am glad you concluded with, ““Imam Zia and the members of the Islamic Center of Irving are some of the best neighbors and citizens any community in America would be proud to have. They are devoted to God and they show divine compassion for people in need,” adds Anthony Bonds, Irving community activist. “

Indeed, a majority of Muslims anywhere are good neighbors. Imam Zia is a rare breed of Imams, who understands the concept of being a good neighbor very well and inculcates those values among his congregation. There are at least 20 verses in Quran that emphasize one’s responsibility to his neighbor.

To give you an idea of the value placed on responsibility to neighbor – once Prophet’s associates ask him who would earn the grace of God more – they gave an example of a man who was drunk, did not pray to God, but when the evening comes around, he would knock on his neighbors doors and share his food with those who were hungry against a pious man who prays all the times. The answer is obvious, such is the emphasis placed on obligation to neighbor.

The ICI is also a center for interfaith dialogue. Just FYI, Prophet Muhammad was the first religious man to hold interfaith conferences in his mosque with Jews, Christians and others. He would even offer them to pray in his mosque knowing very well that they pray differently, such was his faith in God and respect for the otherness of others – aka Pluralism.

Mike Ghouse
World Muslim Congress

The Islamic Center of Irving is making a difference in the community

By: Jackie Hardy, NDG Contributing Writer
http://northdallasgazette.com/2013/12/04/the-islamic-center-of-irving-is-making-a-difference-in-texas/comment-page-1/#comment-31413

With a total population of over 200,000 who call Irving home, Muslim residents make up approximately 30,000 to 40,000 of that population according to Imam Zia Sheikh of the Islamic Center of Irving (ICI).

In a post 9/11 world, Imam (pronounced ih-mahm – meaning spiritual leader in Arabic) has had to address the challenges many within the Muslim community have faced. This is a result of the negative public perception of Muslims following the tragic Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, 28 percent of Muslim Americans reported being looked at with suspicion; 22 percent said they were called offensive names; and 21 percent indicated they were singled out by airport security.

Public Religion Research Institute reported the number of Americans who believe Muslims are working to subvert the Constitution rose from 23 percent in February 2012 to 30 percent in September 2012 according to an article entitled The Reality of Islamophobia in America published on the Council on American Islamic-Relations (CAIR) website.

“There is a fear that all Muslims are terrorists and we are here to change the law of the country,” explains Imam.

Imam Sheikh migrated to the United States in 1995 and began serving as a spiritual leader in 1996, then moved to Irving in 2005; where he presently serves as the spiritual leader with responsibilities of leading the prayers (five times daily), counseling, teaching and leading the services at the Mosque.

The over 40,000 square foot facility located at 2555 Esters Road is comprised with a Mosque, community center and K-12 private school equipped with a library, computer lab, cafeteria and 16 classrooms in addition to 14 portable classrooms.

ICI is a place many Muslim residents of Irving can come and feel safe from some of outside prejudices they may encounter within their respective non-Muslim communities as well as a place non-Muslims can come to learn the truths about the Islamic faith; ultimately helping them dispel some of the myths and untruths about their religion and culture.

According to Imam, statistics show non-Muslim Americans will have a favorable and/or better perception of Muslims once they have been educated about their beliefs.

The Center provides a broad range of services that range in counseling, tutoring and facilitating religious lectures about their faith; in addition to being a place of worship and a facility that houses the school which has received accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

“We are planning to expand the facility to an additional 96,000 square feet to house a floor with a multi-purpose room and 16 additional classrooms,” adds Imam.

Imam advised that all monies raised to support the construction efforts have strictly come from donations as they are in Phase II of the construction development project.

The continued growth in enrollment has warranted the need for expanding as the school currently serves 400 plus full-time students and an additional 150 part-time students.

ICI extends its services outside of the Center through its various community outreach initiatives. A few of their previous outreach programs have included opening their Center for the displaced residents affected by Hurricane Katrina; sponsoring health fairs with the American Muslim Women’s Physician Association; and collaborating with Northwood Baptist Church of Keller to help rebuild homes of tornado victims. They also have partnered locally with Greater Days of Service, an interdenominational organization that renews neighborhoods and provides home restoration of properties for homeowners.

“….the community Ramadan dinner they host every year has been attended by community leaders… overall I think they are a contribution to the City especially in the area of humanitarian contributions, so from my perspective they really have tried to make a difference…,” remarks Irving City Councilman Dennis Webb of Place 3.

ICI recently partnered with Texas Organizing Project to host a health care workshop in the effort to educate the public on the Affordable Care Act that became effective in early October. According to Brianna Brown, Lead Health Care Organizer of Texas Organizing Project, there were over 150 attendees at the event which was their largest health care workshop in Dallas County. Brown accredits ICI for the successful turnout due in large part to their strong promotional efforts within the community.

“Their reputation throughout the community especially in the non-profit world of services is really stellar,” adds Brown.

“Imam Zia and the members of the Islamic Center of Irving are some of the best neighbors and citizens any community in America would be proud to have. They are devoted to God and they show divine compassion for people in need,” adds Anthony Bonds, Irving community activist.

For more information about current and future events, contact ICI via email at outreach@irvingmasjid.org or via phone at 972-812-2230, extension 1005.

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Video: Sharia dialogue by Hasan Mahmud and Taher Gora in Urdu Language

December 4, 2013, 7:55 pm

≫ Next: Imam who plays Rock Music

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Hasan Mahmood on Sharia Controversy
Bilatakalluf with Tahir Gora

Hasan Mahmud is an advisor to World Muslim Congress.

URL- http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/video-sharia-dialogue-by-hasan-mahmud.html

Apostasy: Talks about fallacies of Apostasy - there is no punishment for apostasy, indeed Prophet Muhammad (pbh) did not punish three people who chose to leave Islam.
The Punishment meted out - that is killing is not there in Quran and Hadith.
Also visit http://apostasyandIslam.blogspot.com

Divorce: 2:239 It is not three utterances in one instance, but three months, three periods. Just as in the United States - a waiting period.
He gives examples where prophet gave full and equal rights to women.

Interest/Usury: Good points about Interest.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS63AE0BYyY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUYZDPjEw6MaD4jxym_b6jEA

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Imam who plays Rock Music

December 5, 2013, 10:27 am

≫ Next: The Opponents of Militant Islamism Are Often As Bigoted as Their Targets

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Muslim debates will not cease till eternity, but Music will continue to be a part of our lives.

Islam is also called a deen of fitra (reflection of human nature), and a majority of Muslims believe that Music is part of life, it is natural for one to tune into Music. However, there are many who are against it, indeed they have issued strong fatwas (opinions) against Music.

Our stand is, good music is good music and must be enjoyed. Bad Music that leads to bad things is bad and should be avoided. Obviously cursing is not allowed in a place of worship, any place of worship, so should be the abusive language in music.

I am glad to see Ahmet Tuzer, the Turkish Imam do both.

Wall street writes,

I Rock, Therefore Imam

In a small village in Turkey, Ahmet Tuzer spends his days as a Muslim cleric, chanting the call to prayer. But by night he is the singer in a rock and roll band, causing waves in the Muslim community. WSJ’s Joe Parkinson reports.

Here is the video:

http://live.wsj.com/video/i-rock-therefore-imam/7B92B74B-B5D6-4CF4-BCEA-505D7EFA8031.html#!7B92B74B-B5D6-4CF4-BCEA-505D7EFA8031

This is where you can find this again - URL- http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/imam-who-plays-rock-music-star.html

Thank you

World Muslim Congress
................................................................................................
To be a Muslim is to be a peacemaker, one who mitigates conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence of humanity. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and matter.

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The Opponents of Militant Islamism Are Often As Bigoted as Their Targets

December 8, 2013, 7:58 am

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URL - http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-opponents-of-militant-islamism-are.html

The Daily beast article offers a good analysis of senseless, thoughtless hate mongers, rather scheming racketeers.

I have gone toe to toe with every incident described in the article from Ground Zero, Subway Signs, Angola’s ban on Islam, Peter King Hearings, Geert Wilders and a whole host of the these men and women including Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, David Horowitz and their likes for over four years now.

The bottom line for these folks is money and they have collectively bagged $39 Million – hate and fear sells, and the nincompoops write the checks to these fake defenders of freedom.

I was on Fox about the hate generating signs in Subway, and had said who would be responsible for the deaths and hate crimes generated by these signs? Indeed, there was a Hindu man killed on the subway… I brought that up on Laura Ingraham’s Bill O’Reilly show and Pamela wanted to sue me for slander.

On another occasion she wrote on her blog, before going on Hannity that she is going to beat me up on the show – and when the show was over, she got beat and goes and re-writes the blog calling me a moderate Muslim from calling me an Islamist a few hours earlier.

I will be happy to write the full story.
Mike Ghouse
The Opponents of Militant Islamism Are Often As Bigoted as Their Targets

By Jacob Mchangama
December 7th 20135:45 am

Too often the Western opponents of militant jihad speak up for pluralism and free speech only so long as it’s their rights that are being protected.

One of the supposed core values of the so-called “counter-jihad movement,” a loosely organized collection of vocal activists battling what they believe is the immediate threat of an Islamic takeover of the West, is an unflinching defense of free speech. Because dominant parts of the political elite in many Western states have been hesitant to oppose the real threat that certain Islamic states and Islamist groups pose to free speech, as seen by, for example, their handwringing during the Danish “cartoon crisis,” the counterjihadis have had some success in posing as the true defenders of free speech. The counterjihadis appear willing to defend this enlightenment principle, whereas feckless politicians and intellectuals fear appearing as bigoted or insensitive to minorities. Yet one need only scratch the surface to realize how dominant members of the counterjihad movement are more than happy to compromise on free speech as long as the ends justify the means and those denied their rights are Muslim.

The most blatant example of this agenda was made by one of the godfathers of the counterjihad movement, American blogger and author of “Jihadwatch,” Robert Spencer. Spencer recently wrote a short piece commenting on the news report that Angola had banned Islam and decided to demolish all mosques—a report that turned out to be false. As he has often hailed America’s First Amendment protections of freedom of conscience, expression and religion, one might have expected Spencer to unequivocally condemn the draconian measures ascribed to the Angolan government.

Yet Spencer initially reacted that “[I]n any case, clearly this is a national security issue … There is no way in Angola any more than there is anywhere else to distinguish jihadis in Angola from the peaceful Muslims among whom they move, organize and recruit, and clearly this measure is designed to stop that activity. However, censure from the U.N. and the world “human rights” community will probably soon compel Angola to change its stance, and allow the jihadis free rein.”

Spencer’s stunning approval of what would have been a totalitarian policy by the government of a police state was met with overwhelming and enthusiastic approval by many of his commenting readers. But when Spencer realized that the story was incorrect, he quickly wrote an update in which he suddenly, and conveniently, contradicted his earlier stance and insisted that the supposed ban was contrary to “freedom of conscience” and “human rights.” These are, of course, the very values he had pre-emptively shorn in his initial piece.

There are good reasons to believe that Spencer’s original comments jibe with broad elements of the movement of which he is a prominent member. Spencer’s comrade in arms, Pamela Geller, the president of Stop the Islamization of Nations, also blogged approvingly of Angola’s supposed ban against Islam, calling it “self-preservation on a continent where countries are getting swallowed whole by jihadists enforcing the sharia. It’s a defensive move.” Apparently, self-defense trumps free speech when the enemy is Islam.

Another prominent member of the Counterjihad movement is Danish citizen Anders Gravers, director of Stop the Islamization of Europe and Stop the Islamization of Denmark and, who, along with Geller and Spencer, is a member of the President’s Council of Stop Islamization of Nations. Pamela Geller calls Gravers “one of the foremost defenders of and fighters for freedom.” Spencer, likewise, calls him “my colleague” and has defended him against accusations of being a xenophobe. Yet Anders Gravers is in fact a bona fide xenophobe whose views are antithetical to freedom.

In this speech, Anders Gravers demands that “the Quran should be banned for being a manual of hate,” echoing a proposal by Dutch politician Geert Wilders who long served as a poster boy of the Counter-jihad movement. The manifesto of Stop the Islamization the of Denmark (SIAD), headed by Gravers, calls for denying all non-citizens their constitutional right to political manifestations (which presumably would ban Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer from speaking publicly in Denmark). The manifesto also includes bizarre demands, such as limiting public libraries to servicing Danes and “strictly prohibiting,” on pain of fines and revocation of citizenship, crossing out the original text in school books, unless previously authorized by the ministry of education. To add another nail in the coffin, SIAD advocates introducing a law that with retroactive effect dating back to 1973 would make it “a crime against the independence and security of the state” to aid “foreign peoples with settling in Denmark.” Essentially, this would be a law aimed at punishing politicians “guilty” of adopting immigration policies with which SIAD disagrees.

During the controversy over the so called “Ground Zero Mosque,” which was to be constructed a few blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, Spencer and Geller not only criticized the proposal (as is their legitimate right), but led a campaign demanding that the project be stopped based on the religious viewpoints of the responsible imam and the offense the symbolism of the project would putatively cause. Whether the imam in question holds intolerant views or not, and whether the mosque is an offensive symbol to survivors of 9/11, are irrelevant from a principled free speech point of view. After all, the First Amendment does not make exceptions for any specific religion or ideology and has been the basis for successfully defending Nazis wanting to march through Skokie, a small town once inhabited by the largest population of Holocaust survivors, the incendiary protests of the extremists in Westboro Baptist Church, Ku Klux Klan marches, and Terry Jones’s Quran burnings.

Moreover, Spencer and Geller’s stance vis-à-vis the Ground Zero Mosque hardly resonates with the First Amendment advocacy that the counter jihad movement engages in when opposing restrictions on anti-Islamic speech. When the N.Y. Metropolitan Transportation Authority refused to run an ad by a Geller-affiliated group, which the MTA found “demeaned individuals or groups on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin,” Geller challenged the ban in court. The MTA decision was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, insisting that “there is no good reason for protecting some individuals and groups, but not others, from such abuse.” Geller rightly celebrated that decision as a victory for free speech, but her speeches and actions show that she herself is a highly selective defender of free speech who is willing to deny this same freedom to others.

Geller and Spencer were also rightly outraged when British Home Secretary Theresa May decided to ban them from entering the United Kingdom, categorizing them as founders of “anti-Muslim hate groups.” They have also been critical of hate speech convictions of hard nosed Islam-critics in countries such as the U.K., France, Denmark, Austria, and Finland. Yet the counterjihad movement’s hypocritical stance on free speech actually legitimizes such inherently arbitrary and nebulous laws that seek to enforce tolerance through coercion rather than a free and open debate. And if counterjihadists are actively advocating the denial of their political opponents’ basic rights, it is clearly hypocritical for them to complain when those who find their own viewpoints bigoted and repugnant are silent or even approving of laws targeting anti-Muslim hate speech.

Unless such laws are rejected on principled grounds, their application simply becomes a question of arbitrary political or administrative favor. No single citizen will be more than a political majority away from being the target, rather than the beneficiary, of laws against hatred and offense. The oft heard insistence that “tolerance towards intolerance is cowardice,” therefore, quickly turns into a tautology: Those insisting that intolerance be met with intolerance risk being met with intolerance themselves, unless the impermissible limits of intolerance are drawn narrowly, such as under the First Amendment, based on equality before the law. In the context of the broader effort to promote and defend the principles of freedom of conscience, expression and religion, the illiberal tendencies of the Counterjihadist movement are perhaps even more paradoxical.

If Western states were to ban the Quran and the construction of mosques, how could they effectively hope to defeat the decade long campaign of Muslim majority states to have criticism of Islam prohibited under international human rights law? If Muslims were jailed for peacefully practicing their faith, how could democracies criticize states such as Saudi Arabia, where the liberal blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and 600 lashes for insulting Islam, or Kuwait, where Mussab Shamsah was sentenced to five years in jail for tweeting insults against the prophet Muhammed?

The best hope of combating intolerance, whether that spread by radical Islamists who threaten and sometimes physically attack critics of Islam or by racist Neo-Nazi groups such as Greece’s Golden Dawn, is to rely on the safety valve provided for by freedom of expression. This safety valve allows citizens to sound the alarm and challenge those whose views are hateful and totalitarian. It is assuredly not by mimicking the Gellars and Spencers of the world, thereby effectively becoming an anti-Jihadist Jihadi.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/07/the-opponents-of-militant-islamism-are-often-as-bigoted-as-their-targets.html

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Quran’s emphasis on essence over rituals Q2:177

December 8, 2013, 11:52 am

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Quran’s emphasis on essence over rituals Q2:177
www.Quraantoday.com

Quran is a book of guidance, a manual for building cohesive societies where every one's space is respected. One of the commonest themes is God cares about those who care about their neighbors. Examples have been given to compare a man who prays all the times and the one who does not, but takes care of his neighbor and in God’s he is the best among humanity. Quran is a book of Pluralism, you just have to shed your bias and read from the bird’s eye view, inclusive of humanity. However, like every religion, society and group, Muslims have their own share of fanatics, who do not see the big picture. We all have to figure learning to respect the otherness of others. Mike Ghouse

The most reasonable translation of Quran is done by Muhammad Asad, most of them are ok, but there are two evil translations we all need to watch out.

2:177 (Asad) True piety does not consist in turning your faces towards the east or the west ^[143] - but truly pious is he who believes in God, and the Last Day; and the angels, and revelation, ^[144] and the prophets; and spends his substance - however much he himself may cherish - it - upon his near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, ^[145] and the beggars, and for the freeing of human beings from bondage; ^[146] and is constant in prayer, and renders the purifying dues; and [truly pious are] they who keep their promises whenever they promise, and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in time of peril: it is they that have proved themselves true, and it is they, they who are conscious of God.

143 -Thus, the Qur'an stresses the principle that mere compliance with outward forms does not fulfil the requirements of piety. The reference to the turning of one's face in prayer in this or that direction flows from the passages which dealt, a short while ago, with the question of the qiblah.

144- In this context, the term "revelation" (al-kitab) carries, according to most of the commentators, a generic significance: it refers to the fact of divine revelation as such. As regards belief in angels, it is postulated here because it is through these spiritual beings or force's (belonging to the realm of al-ghayb, i.e., the reality which is beyond the reach of human perception) that God reveals His will to the prophets and, thus, to mankind at large

145 - The expression ibn as-sabil (lit., "son of the road") denotes any person who is far from his home, and especially one who, because of this circumstance, does not have sufficient means of livelihood at his disposal (cf. Lane IV, 1302). In its wider sense it describes a person who, for any reason whatsoever, is unable to return home either temporarily or permanently: for instance, a political exile or refugee.

146 - Ar-raqabah (of which ar-riqab is the plural) denotes, literally, "the neck", and signifies also the whole of a human person. Metonymically, the expression fi 'r-riqab denotes "in the cause of freeing human beings from bondage", and applies to both the ransoming of captives and the freeing of slaves. By including this kind of expenditure within the essential acts of piety, the Qur'an implies that the freeing of people from bondage - and, thus, the abolition of slavery - is one of the social objectives of Islam. At the time of the revelation of the Qur'an, slavery was an established institution throughout the world, and its sudden abolition would have been economically impossible. In order to obviate this difficulty, and at the same time to bring about an eventual abolition of all slavery, the Qur'an ordains in 8:67 that henceforth only captives taken in a just war (jihad) may be kept as slaves. But even with regard to persons enslaved in this or-before the revelation of 8 : 67-in any other way, the Qur'an stresses the great merit inherent in the freeing of slaves, and stipulates it as a means of atonement for various transgressions (see, e.g., 4:92, 5:89, 58:3). In addition, the Prophet emphatically stated on many occasions that, in the sight of God, the unconditional freeing of a human being from bondage is among the most praiseworthy acts which a Muslim could perform. (For a critical discussion and analysis of all the authentic Traditions bearing on this problem, see Nayl al-Awtar VI, 199 ff.

Thank you

mike
World Muslim Congress
.........................................................................................................
To be a Muslim is to be a peacemaker, one who mitigates conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence of humanity. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and matter. Mike Ghouse is a Muslim speaker,thinker and a writer on pluralism, Islam, interfaith and other topics. He is committed to nurturing pluralistic values embedded in Islam and building cohesive Socieities and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day, all his writings are at www.TheGhouseDiary.com

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In search of original Quran, a new book on Quran

December 8, 2013, 9:57 pm

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It is a new book on the market, and the author has made the same mistake as most other, question the words without paying to its wisdom.

It is good to question everything. There is always a small percentage of population that wants to know the truth and is curious, and the other group wants to denigrate the other, but for a majority of the people they just believe and go on living their lives.

Religion is driven by belief. Whether it is Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or any faith - It is what we believe. Religion makes sense to the believer, but if you sit down to tear it apart, no religion, none whatsoever will stand the tests of rhyme or logic.

Prophet Muhammad's splitting the moon, Jesus' walking on the water, Moses walking through the Nile or talking with God on Sinai, Hanuman's carrying the mountain, or How Buddha was conceived sound like stunts to those who do not believe in the others' faith.

Since all faiths have the same bottom line - we must enjoy what we have, so what if it does not make sense to the rationalists? Even rationalists go by their own set of beliefs.

Through the ages Petty Muslim clergy and Petty Christian clergy (same with other petty people of other faiths) were bent on proving the other one to be false. If they spend the time in how to care for each other, all of us would be better off. What you believe works for you, and what I believe works for me.
If we can learn to respect the otherness of others and accept the God-given uniqueness of each one of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

God willing, I am working on my book on Quran, and how it was used by the politicians of all faiths for their gains, it will be out next year.

There is more about different Quran translations including the two bad ones at www.QuraanToday.com

Mike Ghouse committed to nurturing the pluralistic values embedded in Islam.
# # #

In search of Original Quran

Orthodox Muslims venerate the Koran as the sacred word of God, which they believe was literally revealed by dictation from the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. This fundamentalist attitude toward the Muslim holy book denies the possibility of error in the Koran - even though there are some fairly obvious self-contradictions, inconsistencies, and incoherent passages in the text. To justify the claim that the Koran is inerrant, the orthodox have simply pointed to centuries of hidebound tradition and the consensus view of conservative leaders who back up this interpretation. But does the very beginning of the Muslim tradition lend support to the orthodox view?

In this fascinating study of the origins of Islam, historian Mondher Sfar reveals that there is no historical, or even theological, basis for the orthodox view that Muhammad or his earliest followers intended the Koran to be treated as the inviolable word of God. With great erudition and painstaking historical research, Sfar demonstrates that the Koran itself does not support the literalist claims of Muslim orthodoxy. Indeed, as he carefully points out, passages from Islam's sacred book clearly indicate that the revealed text should not be equated with the perfect text of the original "celestial Koran," which was believed to exist only in heaven and to be fully known only by God.

This early belief helps to explain why there were many variant texts of the Koran during Muhammad's lifetime and immediately thereafter, and also why this lack of consistency and the occasional revisions of earlier revelations seemed not to disturb his first disciples. They viewed the Koran as only an imperfect copy of the real heavenly original, a copy subject to the happenstances of Muhammad's life and to the human risks of its transmission. Only later, for reasons of social order and political power, did the first caliphs establish an orthodox policy, which turned Muhammad's revelations into the inerrant word of God, from which no deviation or dissent was permissible.

This original historical exploration into the origins of Islam is also an important contribution to the growing movement for reform of Islam initiated by courageous Muslim thinkers convinced of the necessity of bringing Islam into the modern world.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591025214/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk

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Islamic Discourses on Veiling, Hijab, Burqa, Chador and covering, a comprehensive write up

December 10, 2013, 4:32 am

≫ Next: Aga Khan's 77th birthday Celebrations - Khushali Greetings to the Pluralist Icon of the world

≪ Previous: In search of original Quran, a new book on Quran

Islamic Discourses on Veiling, Hijab, Burqa, Chador and covering.

This is one of the most comprehensive, but yet straight forward write up on the topic. I appreciate the work done by UNC-Chapel Hill in this regard. There is also material about veiling in Jewish, Christian and other traditions. The have lined up what Quran, Hadith, Jurisprudence (Sharia) and interpretations are about. A number of articles on the subject, are posted here at this site, but this is by far the best for Muslims and Non-Muslims to read and understand the issue.

Those who are prejudiced against Hijab, please let it be known, that a majority of women around the world, and 100% of women in the United States wear out of their own volition. Compelling women to comply to men's demand is not Islamic, it is a men thing. Indeed, the sadistic men (Christian, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others) among us regardless of their national origins are insecure, and want to "control" their women through violence and or economic dependence, Caucasian men are no exception to this.

Most Muslims believe that the format of Hijab is cultural and not religious. If it was religious, it shouldn't exist, but since it is cultural it has taken many forms and shapes. The current Hijab worn in the west and literally all other places is more of a fashion statement than a sign of modesty. Hijab is more of a peer pressure than religious need.

I just want to make sure, that Quran always address almost all issues to both men and women equally. You can read what the Quran says down below -addresses both men and women and uses the same language about Modesty.

I thank Shah N. Khan for sharing these sites on our forum at WorldMuslimCongress@yahoogroups.com

Mike Ghouse
www.WorldMuslimCongress.com
URL - http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/islamic-discourses-on-veiling-hijab.html
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This section focuses on veiling in Islam. There is a commonly-held belief among both Muslims and non-Muslims that Islam explicitly and unequivocally prescribes veiling upon Muslim women. Moreover, there is a parallel belief among both Muslims and non-Muslims that such a prescription is stated clearly in the Holy Book of Islam, that is the Quran.

This section explores the central religious texts in Islam that treat the topic of veiling.

In the section titled The Quran, we cite all passages from the Quran that address the topic of veiling.

In the section titled The Hadith Tradition, we examine key hadiths that are regularly invoked to justify veiling.
The term “hadith” refers to the tradition of Reports that have preserved the Deeds and Sayings of the Prophet Mohamed. This tradition is considered foundational in Islam and viewed by Muslims as a key resource (second only to the Quran) that provides practical information on how Muslims are to behave on a daily basis.

In the section titled Islamic Jurisprudence and Law, we present what Islamic Law (or Sharia) tells us about the requirement that Muslim women veil.

In the section called Interpretations, we present both traditional and progressive interpretations of those passages in the Quran and Hadith that address the question of veiling.

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You are here: Home» Religions» Islamic Discourses on Veiling» The Quran

The Quran is the Holy Book of Muslims believed to be the direct and unadulterated word of God transmitted to the Prophet Mohamed (d. 632 C.E), through the archangel Gabriel over a 22-year period, beginning in 610 C.E. The Revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Mohamed is said to have taken place while he was in meditative retreat in Mt. Hira, at the outskirts of Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia. The Quran was revealed in Arabic, hence the prestigious, sacred, position of the Arabic language among Muslims until today.
The Quran consists of 114 chapters (known in Arabic as suras) and each chapter is subdivided into verses (known in Arabic as ayat).
The majority of Muslims and non-Muslims believe that the Quran explicitly and unequivocally prescribes veiling upon Muslim women. In this section, we propose to present what the Quran says about veiling.
In order to learn what the Quran says about veiling and in what terms this Book addresses the question of women’s clothing, we must look at two main types of passages in the Quran:

Every occurrence of the term hijab (the Arabic word that is regularly translated as veil in English); and
All Quranic verses that address the question of Muslim women’s proper attire, even though the Quran may not use the term hijab.

The term hijab in the Quran

The term hijab (in bold in the quotations below) is used in the Quran a total of five times (Q 7:46; Q 19:16-17; Q 33:53; Q 41:5; Q 42:51). These passages are listed below for easy reference. The English translations of Quranic verses provided here are by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem in his new translation of the Quran (Oxford World’s Classics, 2004).

We invite the reader to explore other Quran translations of the same passages to see how the term hijab has been rendered by other translators. The following link gives access to the full Quranic text in Arabic, accompanied by different translations and oral recitation: Multimedia Quran.

Q 7:46

سورة الأعراف ( آية 46)

وَبَيْنَهُما حِجابٌ وَعَلَى الْأَعْرافِ رِجالٌ يَعْرِفُونَ كُلًا بِسِيماهُمْ وَنادَوْا أَصْحابَ الْجَنَّةِ أَنْ سَلامٌ عَلَيْكُمْ لَمْ يَدْخُلُوها وَهُمْ يَطْمَعُونَ (46)

A barrier divides the two groups with men on its heights recognizing each group by their marks: they will call out to the people of the Garden, ‘Peace be with you!’-they will not have entered, but they will be hoping, etc.”

Q 19:16-17

سورة مريم ( آية 16 و 17)

وَاذْكُرْ فِي الْكِتابِ مَرْيَمَ إِذِ انْتَبَذَتْ مِنْ أَهْلِها مَكانًا شَرْقِيًّا (16) فَاتَّخَذَتْ مِنْ دُونِهِمْ حِجابًا فَأَرْسَلْنا إِلَيْها رُوحَنا فَتَمَثَّلَ لَها بَشَرًا سَوِيًّا (17)

Mention in the Quran the story of Mary. She withdrew from her family to a place to the east and secluded herself away. We sent Our Spirit to appear before her in the form of a perfected man.”

Q 33:53

سورة الأحزاب (آية 53)

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَدْخُلُوا بُيُوتَ النَّبِيِّ إِلَّا أَنْ يُؤْذَنَ لَكُمْ إِلَى طَعَامٍ غَيْرَ نَاظِرِينَ إِنَاهُ وَلَكِنْ إِذَا دُعِيتُمْ فَادْخُلُوا فَإِذَا طَعِمْتُمْ فَانْتَشِرُوا وَلَا مُسْتَأْنِسِينَ لِحَدِيثٍ إِنَّ ذَلِكُمْ كَانَ يُؤْذِي النَّبِيَّ فَيَسْتَحْيِي مِنْكُمْ وَاللَّهُ لَا يَسْتَحْيِي مِنَ الْحَقِّ وَإِذَا سَأَلْتُمُوهُنَّ مَتَاعًا فَاسْأَلُوهُنَّ مِنْ وَرَاءِ حِجَابٍ ذَلِكُمْ أَطْهَرُ لِقُلُوبِكُمْ وَقُلُوبِهِنَّ وَمَا كَانَ لَكُمْ أَنْ تُؤْذُوا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ وَلَا أَنْ تَنْكِحُوا أَزْوَاجَهُ مِنْ بَعْدِهِ أَبَدًا إِنَّ ذَلِكُمْ كَانَ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ عظيم (53)

Believers, do not enter the Prophet’s apartments for a meal unless you are given permission to do so; do not linger until [a meal] is ready. When you are invited, go in; then when you have taken your meal, leave. Do not stay on and talk, for that would offend the Prophet, though he would shrink from asking you to leave. God does not shrink from the truth. When you ask his wives for something, do so from behind a screen: this is purer both for your hearts and for theirs.

Q 41:5

سورة فُصلت (آية 5)

وَقالُوا قُلُوبُنا فِي أَكِنَّةٍ مِمَّا تَدْعُونا إِلَيْهِ وَفِي آذانِنا وَقْرٌ وَمِنْ بَيْنِنا وَبَيْنِكَ حِجابٌ فَاعْمَلْ إِنَّنا عامِلُونَ (5)

They [the unbelievers] say “Our hearts are encased against [the faith] you call us to; our ears are heavy; there is a barrier between us and you. So you do whatever you want, and so shall we.”

Q 42:51

سورة الشورى (آية 51)

وَمَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَنْ يُكَلِّمَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَّا وَحْيًا أَوْ مِنْ وَرَاءِ حِجَابٍ أَوْ يُرْسِلَ رَسُولًا فَيُوحِيَ بِإِذْنِهِ مَا يَشَاءُ ۚ إِنَّهُ عَلِيٌّ حَكِيمٌ (51)

It is not granted to any mortal that God should speak to him except through revelation or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by His command what He will: He is exalted and wise.

Comment

Interestingly, those Quranic verses that use the word hijab do not address the question of Muslim women’s clothing. In order to continue to explore Quranic discourses on proper Muslim women’s attire, we must look at other Quranic verses that deal specifically with this topic.

The Quran on women’s clothing

There are three references to women’s clothing in the Quran that are made without the use of the term hijab. All three references listed below. In these three Quranic passages about women’s clothing, the Quran uses the Arabic word khimar to refer to women’s headscarves (Q 24:31), jilbab to their outer garments (Q 33:59), and zinah to refer to their “finery” (Q 32:33).

Q 24:30-31

سورة النور (آية 30) و (آية 31)

قُلْ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ يَغُضُّوا مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِمْ وَيَحْفَظُوا فُرُوجَهُمْ ذَلِكَ أَزْكَى لَهُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا يَصْنَعُونَ (30)
وَقُلْ لِلْمُؤْمِنَاتِ يَغْضُضْنَ مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِنَّ وَيَحْفَظْنَ فُرُوجَهُنَّ وَلَا يُبْدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلَّا مَا ظَهَرَ مِنْهَا وَلْيَضْرِبْنَ بِخُمُرِهِنَّ عَلَى جُيُوبِهِنَّ وَلَا يُبْدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلَّا لِبُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ آبَائِهِنَّ أَوْ آبَاءِ بُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ أَبْنَائِهِنَّ أَوْ أَبْنَاءِ بُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ إِخْوَانِهِنَّ أَوْ بَنِي إِخْوَانِهِنَّ أَوْ بَنِي أَخَوَاتِهِنَّ أَوْ نِسَائِهِنَّ أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُنَّ أَوِ التَّابِعِينَ غَيْرِ أُولِي الْإِرْبَةِ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ أَوِ الطِّفْلِ الَّذِينَ لَمْ يَظْهَرُوا عَلَى عَوْرَاتِ النِّسَاءِ وَلَا يَضْرِبْنَ بِأَرْجُلِهِنَّ لِيُعْلَمَ مَا يُخْفِينَ مِنْ زِينَتِهِنَّ وَتُوبُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا أَيُّهَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ (31)

“[Prophet], tell believing men to lower their glances and guard their private parts: that is purer for them. God is well aware of everything they do. And tell believing women that they should lower their glances, guard their private parts, and not display their charmsbeyond what [it is acceptable] to reveal; they should let their headscarves fall to cover their necklines and not reveal their charms except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their womenfolk, their slaves, such men as attend them who have no sexual desire, or children who are not yet aware of women’s nakedness; they should not stamp their feet so as to draw attention to any hidden charms. Believers, all of you, turn to God so that you may prosper.”

Q 32:32-33

سورة الأحزاب (آية 32 و 33)

يَا نِسَاء النَّبِيِّ لَسْتُنَّ كَأَحَدٍ مِّنَ النِّسَاء إِنِ اتَّقَيْتُنَّ فَلا تَخْضَعْنَ بِالْقَوْلِ فَيَطْمَعَ الَّذِي فِي قَلْبِهِ مَرَضٌ وَقُلْنَ قَوْلاً مَّعْرُوفًا (32)

وَقَرْنَ فِي بُيُوتِكُنَّ وَلا تَبَرَّجْنَ تَبَرُّجَ الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ الْأُولَى وَأَقِمْنَ الصَّلاةَ وَآتِينَ الزَّكَاةَ وَأَطِعْنَ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ إِنَّمَا يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ لِيُذْهِبَ عَنكُمُ الرِّجْسَ أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ تَطْهِيرًا (33)

“Wives of the Prophet, you are not like any other woman. If you are truly mindful of God, do not speak too softly in case the sick at heart should lust after you, but speak in an appropriate manner; stay at home, and do not flaunt your finery as they used to in the pagan past; keep up the prayer, give the prescribed alms, and obey God and His Messenger.”

Q 33:58-59

سورة الأحزاب (آية 58) و(آية 59)

وَالَّذِينَ يُؤْذُونَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَالْمُؤْمِناتِ بِغَيْرِ مَا اكْتَسَبُوا فَقَدِ احْتَمَلُوا بُهْتانًا وَإِثْمًا مُبِينًا (58)

يا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ قُلْ لِأَزْواجِكَ وَبَناتِكَ وَنِساءِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِنْ جَلابِيبِهِنَّ ذلِكَ أَدْنى أَنْ يُعْرَفْنَ فَلا يُؤْذَيْنَ وَكانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا (59)

“And those who undeservedly insult believing men and women will bear the guilt of slander and flagrant sin. Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and women believers to make their outer garments hang low over them so as to be recognized and not insulted: God is most forgiving, most merciful.”

You are here: Home» Religions» Islamic Discourses on Veiling» The Hadith Tradition

The term hadith refers to the tradition of Sayings by the Prophet Mohamed, and of actions he did. This tradition is viewed by Muslims as a key resource of practical information on how Muslims are supposed to behave on a daily basis.
There are six canonical hadith collections believed to contain the most authentic reports of the Prophet’s sayings and doings, the most famed being those by Bukhari (d. 870), by Muslim (d. 875), by Abu Dawud (d. 888) and the Musnad by Ibn Hanbal (d. 855).

Veiling according to the hadith tradition

Of the thousands of reports included in the canonical hadith collections, only one can be said to address explicitly the requirement of women’s covering. This hadith is reported by the ninth-century hadith compiler Abu Dawud (d. 888).

Book 32, Number 4092

This hadith is narrated by Aisha (the youngest wife of the Prophet) and reports an incident involving an encounter between the Prophet and Asma who is the daughter of Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s closest friend and first Caliph at the death of the Prophet:

Asma, daughter of Abu Bakr, entered upon the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) wearing thin clothes. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) turned his attention from her. He said: O Asma’, when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this, and he pointed to her face and hands.

This hadith is included only in Abu Dawud’s late ninth-century compilation and is considered to be the single most explicit and authoritative source for the belief that women are required to veil in Islam.

You are here: Home» Religions» Islamic Discourses on Veiling» Islamic Jurisprudence & Law

Islamic law is oftentimes used as a synonym for sharia. However, we must understand this Islamic law to be a law created by men, and not the law of God which itself is perforce unknown and unknowable. In fact, the Arabic term sharia literally means “path,” and is used in the Quran to refer to God’s law.
Because God’s law/sharia in the Quran was not as specific as one may have wished, and once the Prophet was no longer living to interpret the divine laws for the Muslim community, highly educated scholars and jurists were entrusted with the responsibility of elucidating God’s law. It is the body of laws that these ninth- and tenth-century jurists developed that came to be known as Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), a human legal system that stands in contrast to sharia, which is God’s Law. The Arabic word fiqh literally means “understanding.”
By the end of the eleventh century four schools of Islamic jurisprudence emerged, each named after its leading interpreter: Maliki, Shafii, Hanafi and Hanbali. Each of them struggled to interpret the few Quranic verses on women’s dress and to name with certainty those body parts that were to be concealed.
Muslim Jurists developed a five-part moral scale to evaluate every conceivable human act from mandatory, to recommended, to morally neutral or permissible, to reprehensible to prohibited. Such a scale was meant to guide humans in understanding which acts they were required to perform and which ones to avoid if they were to obey God’s law.

What does Islamic law say about Muslim women’s proper dress?

The Hanbali and Shafii schools, the most conservative of the four, required Muslim women to cover their entire body, including their face and hands.

Most Maliki and Hanafi jurists believed that the entire woman’s body, except for the face and hands, had to be covered.

Interestingly, the juridical discussion of women’s attire did not treat the specific question of hijab, or appropriate Islamic dress to be worn by women in public. Muslim women’s dress was understood to be part of Islamic etiquette and not of required Islamic behaviors.
This means that in traditional Islamic law, the whole debate over clothing fell into the legal categories of appropriate Islamic conduct (wajib and adab), rather than mandatory behaviors (fard) such as praying, fasting during Ramadan or giving alms to the poor. From the perspective of early Islamic law, and in contrast to the way many Muslims continue to assume, failing to cover one’s private parts (Arabic awrah) constitutes only a minor sin for Muslims, not a major sin. Donning hijabcan thus only be a “recommended” action, not a “required” behavior.
The only element debated by Muslim jurists was whether a woman’s hands and face were to be concealed or whether they could be left uncovered. On this specific matter, the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence differ. (See the examples with the two photos above.)

Implications for Muslim women today

Muslims are expected to follow the rituals and adopt the practices (including those related to veiling) of the Muslim-majority society they live in. These practices are defined by the particular school of Islamic law that the country observes.
The Hanbali school, like the Shafii, urge the Muslim communities living within their jurisdiction, to follow a more conservative dress code than the Hanafi and the Maliki. And this is one of the primary reasons Muslim women living in Saudi Arabia or Indonesia dress differently from those in Egypt or Morocco.

Distribution of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence

The Hanafi school is the most prevalent one in Muslim-majority societies, with followers in about one-third of them, including:
India
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Afghanistan
Central Asia
The Caucasus
The Balkans
Turkey
Parts of Iraq
Egypt

The Hanbali, the most conservative school of Islamic jurisprudence, has most of its adherents in Saudi Arabia.

The Maliki school, the second most-dominant school, prevails in countries such as:
The Arabian Gulf States (Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi)
East and West African countries (upper Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Senegal, Mauritania)
Syria
Yemen

The Shafii school is widespread in countries such as:
Indonesia
Malaysia
Singapore
Sri Lanka
Maldives
Palestine
Jordan
Lebanon
Yemen
East Africa (Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania)

You are here: Home» Religions» Islamic Discourses on Veiling» Interpretations

The information about veiling that is gleaned from Islamic religious texts (the Quran or the hadith), is ambiguous and open-ended. In fact, whether or not veiling is required in Islam, and the extent of that veiling, depends primarily on the interpretations of religious texts by Islamic scholars, as well as on the particular country a Muslim lives in.
We provide here an overview of the traditional interpretations of Islamic texts, and of the more progressive interpretations of these same texts are they are developing today.

Traditional interpretations

Traditional interpretations of the Quranic verses treating women’s clothes were developed from the ninth to the thirteenth century, that is two to six centuries after the Prophet’s death. These interpretations were made by Quranic scholars, the most important of whom are undoubtedly Al-Tabari (b. 839, Iran); al-Razi (d. 1209); ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200). This tradition of Quranic exegesis is known in Arabic as tafsir.

According to most traditional scholars, the Quran explicitly and unquestionably requires that Muslim women cover their entire bodies with loose fitting clothes and that they only leave their faces and hands uncovered. This interpretation of the Quranic verses continues to have a number of followers today, as can be observed by the way many Muslim women wear hijab around the world.

Some traditional Islamic scholars have opted for an even more extreme interpretation of the Quranic verses on women’s attire and asserted that the entire woman’s body ought to be covered, including hands and face. Some Muslim women feel swayed by this interpretation and dress in a manner consistent with this traditional view. Some Muslim rulers also have adopted this interpretation and required that women living in their country, whether Muslim or not, dress in this most conservative style. This is how we may interpret Muslim women’s adoption of a niqab (a veil that covers the face but not the eyes) or a burqa (a veil that covers both the face and eyes).

Progressive interpretations

Progressive Muslims is a group of pious Muslims from around the globe who are seeking to reinterpret Islam and core religious texts from an egalitarian, socially inclusive perspective. They believe that Islam, as is practiced around the world today, has been hijacked from the egalitarian spirit that was the core of the message that the Prophet received and preached in the seventh century. Their goal is thus to peel away the layers of interpretations that have been imposed on the Quran over the centuries and that have closed off the more open ended and fluid message of the Holy Book.

Progressive interpretations of the Quran

Progressive Muslims’ engagement with the Quran and with its exegetical tradition has led to the following conclusions:

The Quran does not prescribe a specific dress code for women. Rather, it invites both men and women to observe culturally appropriate codes of modesty.
The notion that Muslim women are required to veil is an interpretation of the Quran, rather than a prescription explicitly enjoined in the Quran. This interpretation has been superimposed on the Quran beginning in the ninth century by exegetes who read the Holy Book from the perspective of their own socio-cultural traditions.
The only women who were required to veil during the Prophet’s time were his wives. In fact, in the seventh century, the verb “to veil” was synonymous to “become the wife of the Prophet”.

Progressive interpretations of hadith

Progressive Muslims are also engaged in a rigorous examination of the hadith tradition and especially as it relates to Muslim women’s proper attire.

Progressive Muslims have called into question the reliability of Abu Dawud’s hadith and challenged the authenticity of his hadith based on their research into the massive scholarship of the hadith tradition. They have observed:

Abu Dawud’s hadith is not reliable because it is cited only in this one collection and is not attested anywhere else. It thus exhibits the very feature marking possible fraudulent reporting according to the complex evaluation system of authentification developed by classical hadith scholars themselves.
Abu Dawud’s hadith is not reliable because it is not supported by an unbroken chain of reporters going all the way back to the Prophet to guarantee its authenticity as all hadiths are supposed to be. It is cited only by Abu Dawud who lived in the ninth century, that is two hundred years after the Prophet’s death.
Abu Dawud’s hadith is unreliable because the female body parts that ought to be concealed are not contained in the Prophet’s own words, but are specified by the hadith reporter himself, in this case, Abu Dawud.

Conclusion

For these reasons, progressive Muslims have concluded that Abu Dawud’s hadith is unreliable and cannot be considered an indisputable proof that Muslim women are required to veil their entire body, except for the face and hands, as some Muslims continue to believe.

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Aga Khan's 77th birthday Celebrations - Khushali Greetings to the Pluralist Icon of the world

December 14, 2013, 8:46 am

≫ Next: Fox News and a Few Conservative Muslim Leaders are Real Scrooges

≪ Previous: Islamic Discourses on Veiling, Hijab, Burqa, Chador and covering, a comprehensive write up

Khushali Greetings to Ismaili Muslims and HH Aga Khan
URL - http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/aga-khans-77th-birthday-celebrations_14.html

Every child, teen and an adult has someone or the other that he or she looks up to, and wants to-be-like that person and eventually becomes one. A good role model is a key to the success of a civil society. Indeed we have a few good men and women who are great role models for Muslims to look up to.

His Highness Aga Khan is one Muslim figure that is respected around the world for his work in uplifting fellow beings; the very foundational duty of a Muslim. Quran is inundated with verses that always end emphasizing on taking care of fellow beings over everything else. In simple words, a mother or a father would be happier if their kids get along, and they would be even happier if the one doing well were to lift up the other siblings who were not doing well. Similarly God will be most pleased if we take care our fellow beings;his creation.

Indeed, His Highness Aga Khan has pleased God of the Aalameen (of all people) with his work. His work is not limited to one community, but the whole humanity as God wanted and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) had reiterated.

He is an inspiration to me, and among the living pluralists today he is one of the few who has actually taken the steps to build an educational system, the Global Center for Pluralism in Canada to bring about a positive change in the world. Harvard University is another institution that has done extensive research on Pluralism with Diana Eck. And now, God willing, I am looking forward to setting up an Institution to conduct workshops and teach pluralism based on my twenty years of studies of societies, and I welcome all the help I can.

It is our duty to honor and cherish individuals who have dedicated their lives in building bridges between communities. Their pioneering spirit in facilitating communities to know and to respect each other must be appreciated (Quran 49:13).

Through their speeches, actions and writings, I have identified a few men and women who are inherent pluralists such as HH Aga Khan, Pope Francis, Karen Armstrong, Barack Obama, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, Dalai Lama, Bishop Tutu, Eboo Patel, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Pope Francis and a few others. Thank God, Pluralism runs in my veins, and I hope to work with these great men and women in the coming years to foster Pluralism; i.e., respecting the otherness of others.

On his 77th Birthday, I urge fellow Muslims to work on writing about these men and women, and how their work can last for centuries to come. Aga Khan's speeches and writings must become a part of social studies in school text books, Islamic social education at Mosques and private schools. He is our role model!

The role of Muslims is to contribute towards the well being of humanity, to be conflict mitigaters and goodwill nurturers. To aim for a secure world for every human. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and matter.

HH Karim Aga Khan is the 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims. He is a direct descendent of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) through Prophet's daughter Hazrat Fatima (ra) and Hazrat Ali (ra), who was the first cousin of Prophet Muhammad, and the first Imam in Shia tradition.

Indeed, Hazrat Ali was the first male to become a Muslim when the prophet shared his message of oneness of God, accountability of one's actions and creating cohesive societies through justice.

Karim Aga Khan was born on December 13, 1936. At the age of 20, he succeeded his grandfather, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan and became the 49th hereditary Imam of the community. He is the living interpreter of Qur'an and provides authoritative guidance on matters of faith to the Ismaili Muslims.

Khushali is a weeklong birthday celebration of HH Aga Khan. The entire Ismaili Muslim community meets in the Jamaat Khana (community center) for the whole week, extolling his work and his service to their community and humanity.

He is one of the rare gems of Islamic scholarship and a Harvard Graduate. He has understood the essence of Islam and articulates it very well. Islam to him is serving and caring for people around you, regardless of their affiliation. A vision put forth by the Prophet, when he said a good deed is like planting a seed, knowing full well, that you may not be the beneficiary of the fruit and shade of the eventual tree in years to come, the prophet said, that is a good deed, it is leaving a good legacy for the next generation, as we have bequeathed from the previous one.

One of the unique qualities of Aga Khan is his ability to seamlessly blend the spiritual and the material worlds. Prophet Muhammad and Hazrat Ali, both preached moderation, and creating a balance between ascetic living and living for material comforts.

I drop things to read and listen to his speeches, it's all about pluralism. I urge fellow humans to consider listening to him. His talks encompass the idea embedded in God being the God of the universes, not for the 47% but for the full 100% of his creation. Prophet Muhammad is the mercy to mankind, not just Muslims but the entire 100% of humanity, what he preached was to create cohesive societies, where no human had to live in fear of the other. The only fear he advocated was fear of God for doing wrong to fellow beings.

Aga Khan lives by example to his 15 Million plus followers around the world. The best way to learn about him is his work, the development work to uplift the ones in the ditches, his institution teaches them how to catch the fish and be self supporting. Visit www.akdn.org/

May he live a long life and serve his community, the Muslim community and every one of the 7 billion of humans.

I am pleased to include Dr. Peerwani's comment:

Thank you Mike for posting this on His Highness the Aga Khan, a truly remarkable man. The Ismailies, as you are aware, follow the "batini" path and differ in some of the practices. It is truly sad that they are maligned and rejected by the orthodoxy. As the Arab Spring now moves into its second phase, acceptance of diversity will be the litmus test. Without this, there is no democracy. Let me quote something from the speech of PM Harper of Canada:

"Your Highness, there are no superlatives to adequately describe the admiration Canadians have for the work that you and your organizations do in the service of pluralism, peace and development around the world. You truly inspire our own hopes for a better world. We Canadians are rightly proud of the fact that we have built one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse and harmonious societies on earth. This achievement is rooted in our founding values: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

But it's also rooted in our unique history and the heroic agreements our founding peoples made to acknowledge and accommodate their diversity. As you yourself have said, you're Highness, and I quote, "We cannot make the world safe for democracy unless we also make the world safe for diversity." If I may say so, sir, you sound like a Canadian. And in fact, you are. On June 19, 2009, our House of Commons voted unanimously to bestow Honorary Canadian Citizenship on His Highness the Aga Khan. This is, if I may say, a richly deserved honor."

(Abstract from the Speech by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Centre, Toronto, May 10, 2010)

Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam and building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. His work is all linked up at www.MikeGhouse.net and published in major news papers and magazine including his blog - www.TheGhouseDiary.com

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A few of the many articles published at www.WorldMuslimCongress.com,
a site committed to nurturing pluralist values of Islam.

Aga Khan and Malala, the Muslim role Modelshttp://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2013/12/aga-khan-and-malala-muslim-role-models.html
The book, where hope takes root by Aga Khan http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/06/aga-khan-democracy-pluralism.html
Aga Khan - Indeed building bridges is part of the Muslim heritage, as Muslims, our role is to mitigate conflicts and nurture goodwill. The Aga Khan is doing just that http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/aga-khan-building-bridges.htm
Aga Khan, fifty years of Imamat http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/aga-khan-50-years-of-imamat.html
Aga Khan Speech about balance http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2009/04/speech-by-his-highness-aga-khan-at.html
Khushali Mubarak and Happy Imamat Day http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2012/07/khushali-mubarak-and-happy-imamat-day.html
Global Religious leaders http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/global-religious-leaders.html
Architect of universal good http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/architect-of-universal-good.html
Shia Imami Muslims
http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2009/08/shia-imami-ismaili-muslims.html
Criticism of Islam, Prophet and Quran
http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2012/11/criticism-of-islam-prophet-muhammad.html
Respecting Muslim Caliphs (Khalifa), Imams and decidersThe most persecuted communities among Muslims today are the Ahmadiyya Muslims followed by Shia Muslims by Sunni Muslims. We know it is not Islamic to be unjust, oppressive and harassive towards others, Muslims or otherwise, but yet it is going on in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and even in India. As a Muslim, it is my duty to speak up, and if all of us do our share of speaking up, at least we have fulfilled the responsibility to enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil. http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2012/12/respecting-muslim-caliphs-khalifa-imams.html

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Fox News and a Few Conservative Muslim Leaders are Real Scrooges

December 17, 2013, 5:29 pm

≫ Next: Texas Faith: Does a white Christmas mean Santa and Jesus have to be white?

≪ Previous: Aga Khan's 77th birthday Celebrations - Khushali Greetings to the Pluralist Icon of the world

Great piece!
Thanks for writing this timely piece on Christmas.

I was appalled to read the statement ascribed to Dr. Zakir Naik that said Merry Christmas amounts to Shirk, that is diluting God’s singularity. It was not a surprise though; Dr. Naik and several Christian, Jewish, Hindu and other men are committed to placing wedges between people, that is how they keep the excitement in the market to earn their livelihood.

However, that goes against the very principle of Islam – to build cohesive societies so all of us can live with least tensions. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was the first human to initiate interfaith dialogue – during one such session; the Christians wanted to step outside the Mosque to do their prayers. The Prophet stepped in and offered them to pray in his mosque.

Had they accepted to pray, the Prophet was going to witness Christians calling Jesus as son of a God, which stands against the belief, Quran 112:3 "He begets not, and neither is He begotten.” Prophet had not problem with that, he respected the otherness of others which is well articulated in Chapter 109 – link http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/.../sura-kafirun-un...

The conservatives, and the self appointed Guardians fail to see the Value in the great book. I suggest check the right translations of Quran, particularly by Mohammad Asad.

Merry Christmas
Mike Ghouse
# # #

Christmas : Fox News and a Few Conservative Muslim Leaders are Real Scrooges
By Shahla Khan Salter

URL - http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/shahla-khan-salter/fox-news-santa_b_4459147.html

On December 6, Slate Magazine published an essay by Aisha Harris entitled, "Santa Claus Should Not be A White Man Anymore." Harris questioned why the fictitious character of Santa was primarily portrayed as white, suggesting it clashed with the reality of children in a racially diverse America. Harris suggested, light heartedly, that perhaps to be more inclusive Santa should be reborn as a more neutral figure -- like a penguin.

In a response that went viral, Megyn Kelly of Fox News said:

"For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white, but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa....Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change, you know?... I mean, Jesus was a white man too. He was a historical figure, that's a verifiable fact, as is Santa -- I just want the kids watching to know that."

To which comedian, Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show replied:

"Who are you actually talking to? Children who are sophisticated enough to be watching a news channel at 10 o'clock at night, yet, innocent enough to believe that Santa Claus is real, yet, racist enough to be freaked out if he isn't white. Why? That's such a narrow... yes West Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

Ironically, Kelly's intolerance, expressed during a season that ought to be filled with giving, love and acceptance, is nothing new. She is not the first to use her platform to try and combat the efforts of others, to make the season more inclusive. And probably won't smile, like some of us did, seeing this:

Photo above is of British sitcom star, Adil Ray, as Citizen Khan, dressed up as a brown, Muslim Santa.
As a Muslim, it reminds me of those conservative Muslim leaders, on the same cold end of the Scrooge barometer as Kelly, who advise us Muslims that we better not wish anyone a Merry Christmas.
Like Dr. Zakir Naik, of India, who has been banned from entry into Canada and the U.K. Naik has stated:

"What people don't realize is that when you are wishing Merry Christmas you are agreeing that Jesus Christ was born on the 25th of December and you are agreeing that he is the begotten son of God... which is shirk."

(Shirk refers to worshipping someone or something else besides God, which some regard as the greatest sin in Islam.)
Really? Merry Christmas means all that? And is a heinous sin?
No. Merry Christmas is simply telling someone that you hope they have a great holiday.
Or as stated by the young, dynamic, Ottawa Imam, Mohamad Jebara:

Yes, as Muslims, we must greet our neighbours graciously during their holiest time of year. Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings are acceptable ways to do so.

"Many books and scholarly writings in the Islamic tradition narrate to us the way Muslims, Christians and Jews, in the Middle East respected each other's religious celebrations and even were there for their fellows, who were not of this religious background, during the celebration, pertaining to celebrating the birth of the blessed Messiah, the Christ, Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon them both).
The Islamic scripture details the event of Christ's nativity in several chapters including chapter 19, named in honor of the Blessed Virgin Saint Mary (peace be upon her).
There is absolutely no room for a closed mind, bigotry, harsh unrelenting animosity and intolerance, in the Traditional interpretation of the Islamic faith.

The Qur'an clearly informs Muslims how to behave and states: 'If you are greeted respond with a better greeting or at the very least respond with an equal greeting.'"

And it's no sin to say Merry Christmas.
After all, our Christian friends are mentioned here, in the Holy Quran, (in the absence of the word "shirk"):
"2:62 Verily, those who have attained faith as well as those who follow the Jewish faith and the Christians and the Sabians and all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds, shall have their reward with their Sustainer and no fear need they have and neither shall they grieve."
Shouldn't we Muslims be less worried about the supposed "shirk" of wishing our neighbours a Merry Christmas and more concerned about the shirk of those who destroy humanity through the worship and glorification of war, sectarianism, power, money and as Islamic scholar, Shabbir Ahmed, provides in his translation of the Holy Quran, the shirk of relying upon, not reason and compassion, but so-called "saints and/or religious men"?
As Muslims, who do we follow? Dr. Zakir Naik? Or Jesus, who also happens to be one of our Holy Prophets too.
As our fellow Muslim, Mike Ghouse, put it:

"Following Jesus is a tough calling.
It means we have to be prejudice free; free from ill-will and malice, must be willing to forgive and embrace those whom we don't like. Indeed, Jesus taught us to create the kingdom of heaven on earth, where no human has to be apprehensive of the other. It was the same calling by Moses, Krishna, Muhammad, Buddha, Mahavira, Nanak, Confucius, Bahaullah, Zarathustra and all the spiritual masters from different traditions, their mission was to bring an order in a disorderly world, restore trust in each other with kindness care and dignity to everyone in the society....
As a Muslim I will be celebrating Christmas, recommitting myself to listen to Jesus and follow his path. And in my Islamic tradition, I will reflect on chapter 19 of Quran, dedicated to Maryam, Mother Mary, and pray on his birthday. I will pray that we all honor his message of creating peace and building cohesive societies where no one has to be apprehensive of the other. Amen!"

And let's not forget these words :
"I come to you with revelation from your Lord. If you follow me, I will raise you from dust to the heights of glory by the command of God. The blind (of reason) among you will begin to see the truth. Those of you who are spotted with sin, I will heal them, and I shall grant real life to those who are just dragging on without purpose; all by God's leave, according to God' laws. I am here to establish justice and equity. I shall see to it how much you hoard in your houses and how much you spend on the community. My teachings are sufficient signs for you to believe." - Jesus, The Holy Quran, 3:49.

Merry Christmas Canada -- may the holiday season be filled with peace, love and joy.
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Texas Faith: Does a white Christmas mean Santa and Jesus have to be white?

December 17, 2013, 5:34 pm

≫ Next: Festivals of the World: Essence of Christmas

≪ Previous: Fox News and a Few Conservative Muslim Leaders are Real Scrooges

Some of the white Christians will resist the idea of Jesus to be anything but what they have come to believe, as if Jesus will cease to exist if he were black. The black Christians may feel the image of white Jesus and Santa was imposed on them, and it is human to resist anything forced on you against your will. I am certain they had their own un-articulated image of Jesus and Santa for as long as they have been Christians. Mike Ghouse

TEXAS FAITH: Does a white Christmas mean Santa and Jesus have to be white?
By Wayne Slater - wslater@dallasnews.com
1:54 pm on December 17, 2013 | Permalink

A cable television anchor named Megyn Kelly told viewers last week that Jesus and Santa Claus are both white men. At issue was a Slate article written by a black writer titled “Santa Claus Should Not Be A White Man Anymore.” The context of the piece was the tendency of cultures to view important figures in the most familiar and comfortable light. On her Fox News program, Kelly took issue with the writer.

“Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change. Jesus was a white man, too. It’s like we have, he’s a historical figure that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa, I just want kids to know that. How do you revise it in the middle of the legacy in the story and change Santa from white to black?”

Both sides pounced. Liberal web sites and late-night comics lampooned her. Conservative web sites defended her. Saturday Night Live did a skit featuring a black Santa. The debate went viral on the Internet. Kelly subsequently suggested she was joking and cast herself as a victim of identity politics. Clearly, her facts were flawed. Jesus was a 1st Century Jew who was likely dark skinned and Santa Claus is a mythological figure whose historical antecedent was from Turkey.

People believe what they are prepared to believe. What’s interesting was the passionate reaction to the remarks. Why the fierce dustup? Why did the idea that a white Christmas means Santa’s white cause so much consternation? What did this episode say about the way we see the world and our willingness — or reluctance – to see things in different ways?

Our Faith Panel weighs in thoughtfully (and with a few fireworks) on history, ethnic identity, political correctness and the virtues of faith and the holidays:

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism and speaker on interfaith matters, Dallas

If Jesus is our lord, and Santa Claus represents the joys of Christmas, I have to relate with them to call them “our Lord” and “our Santa”. Just as God claims to have created humans in his own image so he can relate with them, I would say, we have created God in our own image, a whopping 7 billion perceptions of God.

Even though God is stamped onto our memory with certain images, features and characteristics, some of us have developed our own embellishments to it to personalize him, her or it. While a majority of Christians, Hindus and others have a built-in image of God, the Buddhist, Jains, Zoroastrians and Native traditions do not have a set image, yet they have created their own image of God. The Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Baha’i and others do not take God as a being or an entity, and certainly have a built-in resistance to collapsing God into an image or a shape. But deep down, they imagine and describe God as a being, however, they knock it out instantaneously. It’s human to relate God as their own.

I am blessed to have universalized God. Even those who knew me, particularly Muslims in Dallas, thought I was a Hindu, Buddhist or a Baha’i, and the Hindu community thought I was a Christian and a Buddhist until ten years ago. Three years ago, I was in a Muslim conference and an Arab Muslim came over and started praising my articles on Islam, and said he has translated and published them in Arabic. He then asked me how do I know so much about Islam, and when I said, I am a Muslim, he was taken back and said he thought I was Jewish all these years! One of my Hindu friends of 20 years, until recently, insisted that I cannot be anything but a Hindu or at least a Christian.

If someone likes you, they want to see you as their own, in their own image. Of course the white Christians saw Jesus in their own image, and the African Americans just took that image when they became Christians. But I am certain; they had their own un-articulated different image of Jesus and Santa for as long as they have been Christians.

Some of the white Christians will resist the idea of Jesus to be anything but what they have come to believe, as if Jesus will cease to exist if he were black. The black Christians may feel the image of white Jesus and Santa was imposed on them, and it is human to resist anything forced on you against your will.

The need of the day is to upgrade Jesus, above all human imaginations and limitations and accept him in essence rather than in physical form. It is his love and sacrifice to humanity that needs to be appreciated. I hope and pray that at least from this Christmas season forward, we accept and embrace Jesus without reserve just as he set the example of embracing the humanity without reserve. Let him be meaningful to us in every which way he can be imagined.

To see the take from 12 different panelists, go to Dallas Morning News at: http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/12/texas-faith-does-a-white-christmas-mean-santa-and-jesus-are-white.html/

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and a book with the same title is coming up. Mike has a strong presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest onSean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.
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Festivals of the World: Essence of Christmas

December 25, 2013, 8:15 am

≫ Next: Pope Francis, the pluralist

≪ Previous: Texas Faith: Does a white Christmas mean Santa and Jesus have to be white?

Should Christmas be an exclusive Christian event? This Muslims' answer is no. We cannot limit Jesus to be exclusively owned by any group of people, nor can anyone monopolize his message. Jesus and his message belong to the whole of humanity. For Christians, he is the son of God, and for all others, he is a great man who brought the message of hope and peace to the world. Whether we believe in God or not,

Continued http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/festivals-of-the-world-es_1_b_4492571.html#es_share_ended

Thank you
Mike Ghouse
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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and a book with the same title is coming up. Mike has a strong presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.
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Pope Francis, the pluralist

December 25, 2013, 8:29 am

≫ Next: Prophet Muhammad's peace formula - Happy Milaad

≪ Previous: Festivals of the World: Essence of Christmas

Pope Francis is my hero and an inspiration. He is one of the true pluralists, respecting God and respecting every one God has created. Ever since he became the Pope in March, I have read up on him and now read almost everything about him.He gives me hopes that he can influence the world to be a better place to live for every human. He has already performed the acts of Jesus by embracing humanity regardless of their beliefs and practices.

The age old conflicts between Judaism and Christianity, and Christianity and Islam, and denigration of Paganism and Hinduism have been down cast on the peace and tranquility of the world.

After Gandhi, MLK and Mandela, Pope Francis is one person that does not have barriers between him and humanity. He is almost following the teachings of Jesus and Prophet Muhammad in spirit. Let's pray that he becomes an instrument of mercy to mankind.

I have written 15 articles about him and hope to meet up with him.
http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2013/12/pope-francis-articles.html

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam,Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building aCohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day atwww.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and a book with the same title is coming up. Mike has a strong presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.
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Prophet Muhammad's peace formula - Happy Milaad

January 14, 2014, 1:01 pm

≫ Next: Fixing Sharia Laws

≪ Previous: Pope Francis, the pluralist

The 1444th Birth Celebration of Prophet Muhammad

I wanted to understand the prophet as a human with whom I can relate, and critically review his contributions towards creating cohesive societies, where no individual had to live in apprehension and fear of the other. The book, Muhammad by Karen Armstrong was a great help in understanding the man and his decision making process geared to create peaceful societies, and have since come to love his work.

The best way to honor the prophet is to follow him, and become a Rahmat (kind and just) to your spouse, kids, siblings, parents, family, friends, customers, clients, vendors and every human around you. And if others feel safe and secure with you, God and the prophet would be pleased with you.

I have made an attempt to narrate how the 15 incidents were influenced by Prophet Muhammad' peace gene.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/festivals-of-the-world-mi_b_4579452.html

if you like the article, please click like at Huffpost, share it on your facebook, tweet it... thanks

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Fixing Sharia Laws

January 15, 2014, 9:33 pm

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Rather than rejecting Sharia out-right, we need to fix it. Sharia serves as a system of justice to the given populations in Muslim majority nations; without it a large swatch of population would become rudderless. Our own constitution has been amended several times, and that is what is needed to be done with Sharia.

The right-wing Muslims will scream at me for questioning the divinity of Sharia, and the right-wing Christians, Jews, Hindus, and others will be calling me names, as this essay does not condemn Sharia. They simply cannot see another point of view.

Sharia was a human effort to dispense justice to fellow beings in accordance with Quran and the Prophet’s examples; however, men are fallible beings and have failed to deliver justice. They have got it all wrong when it comes to women, apostates, blasphemers and the victims of rape. Sharia as practiced in a few of the Muslim nations does not reflect God's wisdom or the practice of the prophet. It needs to be fixed badly.

Continued: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Fixing-Sharia-Laws-by-Mike-Ghouse-Apostasy_Blasphemy_DNA-Rape-Kit_Divorce-140115-276.html

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and a book with the same title is coming up. Mike has a strong presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

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The Quran