| 12 January 2011
One of the most distinguishing features of Islam that sets it apart from all other faiths and ways of life is the fact that it is simple, easy to practice, appeals to human reason and is best suited to human nature as opposed to the conventional tags of hardship, dogmatism and complicity associated with religion simultaneously having to itself the aura of Truth and Divine attestation to its legislation and advocacy.
Read more...| 15 December 2010
Darul Uloom Deoband is once again in news not for some good reason but for an Anti Progressive and Anti- Women Fatwa. From past one year it has become norm with Darul Ifta, (the department which issues the Fatwas) of Darul Uloom to issue fatwas which would generate resentment, draw flak and condemnation from all quarters and even from Muslims, but the Fatwa activists of deoband seem to have learnt nothing from its mistakes, which become a punching bag for corporate anti Muslim media to further malign Islam and label it as backward, theocratic, obscurantist, medieval and stagnant.
An aggressive secular state often marginalizes ethnic minorities, and attempts to divide et impera minorities to weaken their ethnic roots. France has forcefully banned the face veil for women, referred to as Niqab by Muslims, under the pretext that it is oppressive for women. The law will come into effect later this year unless turned down by senior judges. Women who break the law will be fined. But the question is – what will this ban achieve?
To start with there are hundreds of Quranic verses in which Jews and Christians have been mentioned in great details. Moreover the “common points”, “propositions”, “agreements”, or tenets on which Muslims and "The People of the Book" have similar views, cooperation has been sought and they have been exhorted to find the commonalties rather than differences. Apart from the religious scriptural treatment that has been given to them by the Quran, there are historical evidences, which show that the People of the Book have cooperated in the past in clandestine manner and have also entered into very healthy dialogue. For instance, Jews enjoyed better treatment after they were expelled from Spain in 1492, and their forced conversion in Portugal 1497.Because at that time, many Jews escaped to the Muslim kingdoms of North Africa, or the Ottoman empire, where they mostly lived in peace. Moreover, the powerful role played by Jews in the Ottoman court of the 16th and 17th centuries is also very significant. There was no tradition of bad feeling between Muslims and Jews until 1900.