VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH

VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH
Volume 208, November 06, 2011
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful

EDITORIAL NOTE:

In this E-Zine, we have started off with highlighting positive news, followed by interfaith relations, Islam in Europe, Extremism and the issue of discrimination.

PART I

POSITIVE NEWS:

ED NOTE:

Below video is a very touching video. To see the deepest respect our loving Muslim brothers and sisters in Chechnya have given to receive a bowl that our Prophet Mohamed (SAW) once used is breathtaking. Looking at below video, for a short moment we were almost in a trance, trying to visualize how 1400 plus years ago, the same bowl was used by the greatest human being ever to live on Earth. At the end of the video, while tears welled up in our own eyes, co-incidentally, we observed that even the President of Chechnya who had taken the bowl in his hands, kissed it and then he broke down crying.

While it may mean nothing to non-believers, for Muslims who love our Prophet to death, IT MEANT EVERYTHING. To all those Chechyans that came to the event, we send our flying kisses. LONG LIVE ISLAM. If anti-islamists think that they could eliminate 1.2 billion Muslims concentrated in 57 Muslim countries and spread across the globe, they could continue dreaming. Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in the world and nobody can stop it. All the trash talk against Islam is only going to strengthen our conviction and make us stronger Muslims and we deeply feel sorry that the anti-islamists are wasting their time when they could be using their time productively for their own betterment elsewhere.

However one common platform that we could work together is to root out our common enemy - the criminals/extremists who are the cancer of GLOBAL UMMAH and who have no qualms in killing innocent men, women and children and who have perverted the teachings of Islam which stands for TOLERANCE, PEACE AND JUSTICE.

PART I-a

GROZNY: PROPHET MUHAMMAD'S BOWL DELIVERED FOR ETERNAL STORAGE
September 22, 2011

(full video) Via Interfax:

A bowl said to have once been used by the Prophet Muhammad has been delivered to the Chechen capital of Grozny from Britain. Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechen government members, and representatives of the Chechen Muslim Authority were meeting the relic at the Grozny airport. A live chain of students, school children, and clerics was formed from the airport to the Chechnya's Hearth Mosque. After the bowl was delivered to the mosque, a collective prayer was conducted there.

PART I-b

LEUVEN: MUSLIM STUDENTS OPEN COLLEGE ACADEMIC YEAR
October 6, 2011

Via HLN (Dutch, h/t NRP):

Two Muslim students in headscarves, opened the academic session at the Group T engineering college in Leuven with a prayer. "Kamila and Manan are, with so many others, a symbol of the plurality of our worldviews," says the international college, who is part of the K.U.Leuven. Group T's teacher training is the only one in Flanders in which students can choose between five different religious subjects: Catholic, non-confessional ethics, Buddhism, Islam and starting this year also Protestantism. Group T says that a plurality coordinators is responsible for an intense dialog between these life-views.

PART II

INTERFAITH NEWS:

AUSTRIA

VIENNA: SAUDI ARABIA TO SET UP INTER-RELIGIOUS CENTRE

October 16, 2011
(condensed version)

Via the Austrian Times:

Foreign Ministers Prince Saud al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Michael Spindelegger of Austria and Trinidad Jimenez of Spain, from left, pose after signing the agreement for the establishment of the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, KAICID, in Vienna, Austria, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger and high-ranking representatives from Spain and Saudi Arabia signed a contract sealing their intention to create such an institution in Vienna.

The Austrian Initiative of Liberal Muslims (ILMÖ) said it feared integration would become more difficult for Muslims in Austria as the centre may strengthen "fundamentalist-conservative Islam" in the country. Fuat Sanac, the new head of the Austrian Islamic Denomination (IGGiÖ), said he welcomed the idea to locate such a centre in Vienna. Sanac said: "What’s wrong with starting a dialogue among different peoples?" The Turk claimed the establishment of the institution could improve the situation of Christians in Saudi Arabia.

PART III

ISLAM IN EUROPE

PART III-a

SCOTLAND:
HALAL HAIRDRESSER

Via the Herald:

With its frosted windows, CCTV cameras, and tightly monitored security entrance, it is going to be one of Aberdeen’s most secretive business enterprises. So, you could be forgiven for wondering if the shop has something to hide. Well, it does – its customers. Or rather it is the customers who want to remain hidden. For this is Scotland’s first ‘halal hairdressers’ – a beauty salon which conforms to the strict rules of Islam; a place were Muslim women who wear the veil or headscarf can be seen uncovered without the risk of the gaze of men.

Discreet Creative Hairdressing, scheduled to open in three weeks, is the brainchild of 21-year-old Mahida Iqbal and her husband of nine months, Fueb Mieh.

The salon will be a ‘man-free zone’.

The frosted windows will stop any inquisitive men passing by from gawping at the clients. No-one can get in without passing through a secure buzzer entry system with CCTV. All this means that the Muslim ladies who have come for a new hair-do can remove their headscarves safe in the knowledge that only other women can see them.

Iqbal hit on the idea when she began wearing the headscarf for the first time last year, although she credits her husband – a fellow entrepreneur who runs Indian takeaways – for coming up with the proposal. While there are other salons in Scotland which offer a ladies-only service, Iqbal wants to offer something geared to the needs of the Muslim community. She said: “There are hair salons in Glasgow that are ladies-only, but not like our salon.

Our salon is completely discreet, completely hidden from the public, from men, whereas the salons there, men still walk past and they can still see in or come in. Ours has a buzzer entry system, and we’ve got CCTV so that we can see who’s actually approaching the door.

PART III-b

FRANCE:

VEILED WOMAN ANNOUNCES PRESIDENTIAL BID

Via AP

A Frenchwoman who wears an Islamic face veil, despite a nationwide ban, wants to run for president in next year's elections.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Kenza Drider said she wants to defend the rights of all French women.

She is among a group of women mounting an attack on the law that has banned Muslim face veils from the streets of France since April. They want to prove the measure contravenes fundamental rights.

PART IV

EXTREMISM:

PART IV-a

DENMARK:
JEWISH WOMAN ATTACKED BY BOY WHO'S BEEN TOLD TO "KILL ALL JEWS":
October 14, 2011

(The Jewish Cemetery in Copenhagen)

The report doesn't state the religion of the attackers, but Danish authorities have been concerned for a long time about the effects of antisemitic Arab satellite TV on Muslim-Danish kids.

Via Danish Police (h/t Uriasposten):

A 21-year old Jewish woman was overseeing the Jewish cemetery in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen this past Sunday when two young boys of foreign origin, about 13 years old, approached and asked what the place was. She answered it was a Jewish cemetery. One of the boys asked whether she was Jewish, to which she answered in the affirmative. At this point he pulled out a corkscrew and threatened her, saying he'd been told he should kill all Jews. The other boy told him to stop. Both boys then ran off.

PART IV-b

SERBIA:
17 ARRESTED AFTER ATTACK ON US EMBASSY IN BOSNIA:
October 30, 2011

Via AFP:

(shooter Mevlid Jasarevic)

Serbian police on Saturday said they had arrested 17 people in the southwestern Muslim-dominated district of Sandzak, on suspicion of links to an Islamic extremist who opened fire on the US embassy in Sarajevo. "Police detained 17 persons suspected of being members of the radical Wahhabi movement and having close links with Mevlid Jasarevic," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Wahhabism is a strict and ultra-conservative branch of Islam which is dominant in Saudi Arabia. The suspected radical Islamist Jasarevic, a Serbian national from Novi Pazar, was wounded and arrested after opening fire Friday on the US embassy in Sarajevo. A police guard was wounded in the attack.

PART V

DISCRIMINATION:

SPAIN

MADRID: GIRL KICKED OUT OF EXAM FOR WEARING HEADSCARF:
October 09, 2011

Girl kicked out of exam for wearing headscarf The teacher refused (ES) to let her take the test since her headscarf covered her ears, which could be used to cheat as it could hide electronic equipment.

Via Bikya Masr (h/t Islamophobia Watch):

A 14-year-old Muslim girl in Spain was kicked out of an exam in her Madrid secondary school after she refused to take off her headscarf, local Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos reported on Tuesday night. Eivan Khemins Eibar, the girl’s lawyer and a specialist on discrimination cases, sent a report to the school manager saying the student did not do anything wrong in wearing the hijab.

THE END