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| India-Pakistan |
| Who will stand up and speak for Islam? |
| 2006-05-05 |
| By Khalid Hasan Tarek Fatah, the bane of Canada’s large and on-the-march community of screaming clerics, which now includes the Dar-ul-Huda lady, Dr Farhat Hashmi, wants to know why Muslims in Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Nigeria and Egypt rioted, causing death and destruction to protest the Danish cartoons, have said not a word about the planned destruction of the home of the Holy Prophet (on whom be peace) by the Saudi government. This indeed is a puzzling question and no one has so far come up with an answer. I thought the best person to ask this question was the one who had asked it first. A call to Tarek Fatah in Toronto, the city that Farhat Hashmi has chosen to sink her fangs into, had him saying that the Muslims of the world had suffered a collective loss of rational thinking. Since they have no faith in themselves or their future, they have sunk into their past, he said. “My feeling is that the Muslim leadership is almost universally bereft of any integrity or courage. Since the attack on the Prophet’s mother’s grave was carried out by the rich and powerful ruling house of Saud, no one will dare speak or protest. Had a Bangladeshi committed this act, the Mullahs would have been exhorting their congregations and madrassa pupils to take to the streets. But they dare not speak against those who butter their bread.” He argues, “It was easy going against the Danes and calling for a boycott of Lego and Danish cheese, but did anyone ask for a boycott of Microsoft, General Motors or other essential luxury American goods or services?” KH Khurshid has recorded that the Quaid-i-Azam would get worked up when someone would talk about the glorious age of Islam. He would tell the person not to regale him with stories of Islam’s past glory. “What are you today?” he would ask. Today, the Muslim leadership, both clergy and politicians, is caught up in a medieval cobweb; the peasant in the village, the worker in the sweatshop, is a realist and his ideas are progressive. Recently, Fatah heard a Muslim leader in Toronto tell a gathering that the Muslims of India were in the sorry state they were in because of the Taj Mahal, which, he said, should be demolished since it was sinful to build such structures. God, he said, was punishing the Indian Muslims because they had allowed this wicked structure to stand on the soil of India for so long. There is no dearth of Muslims in Pakistan, America and Canada who fervently believe that God punished us with the October 2005 earthquake because of our sins and for neglecting our religious duties. Had everyone prayed five times a day and had all the men let their beards grow and had all the women put on not the hijab but the niqab , divine punishment would not have been sent down. If you ask them what those thousands of flower-like children, who were buried alive in their schools, had done to earn divine wrath, you are told that the punishment was collective and some innocents also perished, but had their parents not been sinners, they would have been spared. What can you do with a mindset like that, except to hit your head into the first wall you come to? But to return to the demolition of the grave of the Prophet’s mother, ironically it is the British newspaper, The Independent , and not one from a Muslim country, that has carried a report about this outrage. Daniel Howden’s story, published on 19 April, says that, “Previously unseen photographs reveal how religious zealots obsessed with idolatry have colluded with developers to destroy Islam’s diverse heritage.” He talks of a “growing shadow” being cast over Islam’s holiest site, as only a few metres from the walls of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, skyscrapers are reaching further into the sky, slowly blocking out the light. “These enormous and garish newcomers now dwarf the elegant black granite of the Kaaba. . . The tower blocks are the latest and largest evidence of the destruction of Islamic heritage that has wiped almost all of the historic city from the physical landscape. As revealed (in an earlier issue, the) historic cities of Mecca and Medina are under an unprecedented assault from religious zealots and their commercial backers.” The correspondent writes that the Wahabis live in “fanatical fear that places of historical or religious interest could give rise to alternative forms of pilgrimage or worship. Their obsession with combating idolatry has seen them flatten all evidence of a past that does not agree with their interpretation of Islam.” Irfan Ahmed al-Alawi, the chairman of the Islamic Heritage Foundation, told the newspaper that the case of the grave of Amina bint Wahb, the mother of the Prophet (pbuh), found in 1998, is typical of what has happened. “It was bulldozed in Abwa and gasoline was poured on it.” Today there are fewer than 20 structures remaining in Mecca that date back to the time of the Prophet (pbuh). “The litany of this lost history includes the house of Khadijah, the wife of the Prophet (pbuh), demolished to make way for public lavatories; the house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet’s (pbuh) companion, now the site of the local Hilton hotel; the house of Ali-Oraid, the grandson of the Prophet (pbuh), and the Mosque of Abu-Qubais, now the location of the King’s palace in Mecca. “Yet the same oil-rich dynasty that pumped money into the Taliban regime as they blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan six years ago has so far avoided international criticism for similar acts of vandalism at home.” Dr Mai Yamani, an author, says it is time for other Muslim governments to ignore the Sauds’ oil wealth and speak out. “What is alarming about this is that the world doesn’t question the al-Sauds’ custodianship of Islam’s two holy places. These are the sites that are of such importance to over one billion Muslims and yet their destruction is being ignored,” she has said, adding, “When the Prophet (pbuh) was insulted by Danish cartoonists, thousands of people went into the streets to protest. The sites related to the Prophet (pbuh) are part of their heritage and religion, but we see no concern from Muslims.” Al-Nour may be the next to go. Home to the Hira’a cave, it was here that the Prophet (pbuh) received the first verses of the Quran. According to the British newspaper, hardline clerics want it destroyed to stop pilgrims visiting. At the foot of the hill, they have inscribed a fatwa that says, “The Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) did not permit us to climb on to this hill, to pray here, to touch stones, and tie knots on trees.” Let Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who claims to be Islam’s great defender, stand up and speak! |
| Posted by:john |
| #2 oops hit submit meaning preview If you do not act, oh muslims not from SA, you are dead. And all islamic remnents with you. The enemy is within, not without. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-05-05 22:40 |
| #1 Let Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who claims to be IslamÂ’s great defender, stand up and speak! Let Wahabis continue to destroy Islam, eradicate all roots and replace with the story they have developped. Destroy all evidence. Mind rules. If you do not act, oh muslims not from SA, you are dead. And all islamic rements with you. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-05-05 22:37 |