Saturday, April 21, 2012

Sri Lankan mosque forced to abandon prayers by protesters


A mosque in Sri Lanka has been forced to abandon Friday prayers amid community tensions in the central town of Dambulla.
About 2,000 Buddhists, including monks, marched to the mosque and held a demonstration demanding its demolition.
A mosque official told the BBC he and several dozen companions were trapped inside and feared the crowd would destroy the building.
Overnight the mosque had been targeted by a fire-bombing - no-one was hurt.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says the tensions have been growing in the neighbourhood.
Shortly after the protest the mosque was evacuated and its Friday prayers cancelled.
Many Buddhists regard Dambulla as a sacred town and in recent months there had been other sectarian tensions in this part of Sri Lanka, our correspondent says.
Last September a monk led a crowd to demolish a Muslim shrine in Anuradhapura, not far from Dambulla.
Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the population in Sri Lanka.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

MEASI IAS/Civil Services training centre

Assalamu allaikum Brothers,
As a Life member of Muslim Educationao Association of Southern India(New college) I brought a resolution in the General Body in 2008 to start training to IAS/ State Civil services. But unfortunately it was defeated.
I became the Executive member of MEASI in 2011 by the grace of Allah.
During the Executive meeting of MEASI on 12/04/2012 at Chennai, New College premises,
I read out the resolution on the formation of IAS/Civil services training centre at New College premises and it was unanimously passed.
There are mushroom training centres recently in the name of our community to exploit the ignorance of such training. Alert our boys and girls not to fall pray for any duping and deceiving.
Insha Allah a methodical training is going to start in the ensuing academic year at New college, June, 2012 to prepare the candidates for writing the preliminary examination in May, 2013.
Pray for success.

AP,Mohamed Ali    

Saturday, April 14, 2012

News World news Pakistan New wave of well-off Pakistani women drawn to conservative Islam


All the women working in the information technology division of the Bank of Punjab's headquarters in the western Pakistani city of Lahore wear headscarves tightly wound around their cheeks and chin, framing their faces as they tap at their keyboards. A year or so ago not one covered their heads with the hijab.
"I was the first," says 28-year-old Shumaila, as she waited with some impatience in the city's iStore for her new £800 Apple MacBook to be loaded with the software she had ordered.
"I started reading the Qur'an properly and praying five times a day. No one made me wear the hijab. That would be impossible," she laughs brightly. "I showed the way to the other girls at work."
They are not alone. Though there are no statistics and most evidence is anecdotal, a new wave of interest in more conservative strands of Islamamong wealthier and better educated women in Pakistan appears clear.
It is part of a broader cultural and religious shift seen in the country over decades but which observers say has accelerated in the past 10 years.
"The other girls who were working with us left." Shumaila said. "They found the new environment a bit unfriendly."
One indication of the trend is the growing proportion of women within the conservative religious political organisation Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). Syed Munawar Hassan, the leader of JI in Pakistan, said that women made up an increasing proportion of the organisation's 6 million members and 30,000 organisers. "Our women's wing is doing very well," he said. "They are some of our best organisers."
JI, like its counterparts elsewhere in the Islamic world, has traditionally recruited among the lower middle class, swollen in recent decades in Pakistan by rapid urbanisation and economic growth. But the new wave of devotion is now touching the elite in a new way. Al-Huda (The Guidance), an organisation set up in 1994 to spread a new and often rigorous piety among Pakistani women, has gained a foothold among the upper reaches of society.
The group, which critics accuse of encouraging intolerant strands of Islam influenced by those practised in Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, has grown from an initial single small centre in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, to a presence in every city, and is expanding among the Pakistani diaspora abroad.
Members attend intensive courses in Qur'anic studies and Arabic and are directed to do social welfare work, too. Not all enjoy the experience of al-Huda, however.
"I found it very limiting and rigid. But it is very popular among women from very wealthy families that are quite conservative. Recently there are a lot of young women coming to a very traditional Islam. There is a deep desire for learning," said Maha Jehangir, a 30-year-old consultant and former al-Huda member.
Jehangir, who lives in a large house in one of the most exclusive parts of Islamabad, said questions posed by the events of the past decade were particularly important for young women.
"People who grew up within the war on terror are asking, what does it mean to be a Nato ally? Is India our worst enemy? We are bombarded by all this information and there is a deep need for answers. That leads to religious inquiry," Jehangir said.
Many found the answers in conservative strands of religious practice, she said.
Other influences that underpin the new piety among wealthy women include the experience of many Pakistanis who have spent time in the Gulf.
Amna, a 21-year-old business student whose father was a manager for a major firm in Saudi Arabia, said that it was wrong to think that women who were richer or more educated would inevitably be more secular.
"Everything we learn comes from the Qur'an. Maths, computers, banking – the Qur'an contains everything," said Amna, who wears a Saudi-style full veil covering all but her eyes even at the all-female college in Islamabad where she studies.
However, if there is a demand for more rigorous, literalist strands of Islamic practice among wealthy and educated women, there is also an interest in more tolerant varieties.
In Lahore, the al-Mawrid institute is attracting more and more "educated ladies, doctors, professors, housewives who do not know about Islam", says Kaukab Shehzad, a 43-year-old teacher.
The institute, in the wealthy suburb of Model Town, was set up three years ago but had to move after receiving threats from radical scholars, she said. "We read the Qur'an in detail but we discuss other religions too. We were attacked for saying that the niqab [Saudi-style veil] is not justified in the Qur'anic teachings and for arguing against their interpretation of the idea of jihad," she said.
Though solidarity with Muslim communities overseas is encouraged by many conservative practitioners, many of the new devout shun such a global vision and identity. Shumaila, the bank worker and Apple enthusiast, says she is not interested in events in the Middle East: "We've enough going on here."
Jahangir, the former al-Huda member in Islamabad, recently spent two years studying in a religious school of the Deobandi branch of Islam, also followed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. A graduate of both Massachusetts and London Universities, she too said that political activism was of little interest: "I don't try to make sense of the Taliban. I find [them] obscure and irrelevant. For me, [the Deobandi school of Islam] is far more of a route to spirituality than a political ideology."

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

One of the most inspiring


One of the most inspiring and powerful aayaat of the glorious Qur’an is: 

Hasbunallahu Wa Ni’mal Wakeel. 

Allah is Sufficient for us, and He is the Best Disposar of affairs for us. What an Excellent Guardian and Protector He is! 

Who doesn’t need help, care, protection and victory?

Who doesn’t feel weak, over-powered by difficulties, stress and worries?

In their quest for peace and tranquility, some affluent sections of society resort to sleeping pills, drugs and what not.

Poor curse their miseries and desire that they become rich.

They say grass appears greener on the other side!

But strange is the way of a true Muslim!

Here there is no question of the grass getting dry. His side of the grass is always greener. Subhaanallah!

The roots of this amazing grass are strong and deep. They are being continuosly fed with the waters of Imaan.

Willing submission to the Master, the very Controller of all affairs, keeps the grass ever green.

Don’t you find the presence of amazing dew drops on this amazing grass?

Click here to read more »
 
Vassalam.
MuQeet