Dr. Zakir Naik inaugurates Darussalam bookstore in Riyadh

RIYADH: The Islamic Research Foundation(IRF) owned Peace TV will start Arabic Channel from next year. A major Islamic satellite channel Peace TV already has a viewer ship of over 100 million viewers across the world. The 24-hour Arabic language Islamic channel will be dedicated for the Arabic speaking viewers around the world. 

President of the India-based Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) and internationally renowned scholar Dr. Zakir Naik disclosed this in Riyadh this week. 

Dr. Naik was in Riyadh to inaugurate a book store of Daarussalam Publications at Riyadh Avenue Mall in Riyadh. 

There are more than 60 Arabic channels today but the Peace TV channel will be unique in content and technology. The new channel will have access to the world's 300 million native Arabic speakers, he added. He said the new channel would be a respected global media outlet presenting Islam and removing misconceptions about Muslims and the Islamic world. 

Dr. Zakir Naik said the IRF has planned to open two world-class international Islamic schools in Riyadh and Jeddah. These schools will be run based on the model of his Mumbai-based school, he noted. 

He was felicitated at a dinner reception hosted in Riyadh on Wednesday by Rashid Ali Sheikh, an Indian businessman and social worker. Another reception in his honor was hosted by Abdul Malik Mujahid, Darussalam managing director and it was attended by a large number of diplomats, businessmen and Saudi as well as non-Saudi officials. 

courtesy:  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/other-news/Dr-Zakir-Naik-inaugurates-Darussalam-bookstore-in-Riyadh/articleshow/12234544.cms 

How Young is "TOO YOUNG" For Marriage?

Muslims and Non-Muslims alike seem very concerned over the age of Ayesha, may Allah be pleased with her, when she married the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. There are a number of facts involved to indicated this was very normal at their time in history both in the Arab culture and European culture as well.

One important fact is, Ayesha, may Allah be pleased with her, was offered in marriage to his best friend since childhood, Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, peace be upon him. Emphasis is on the word - "marriage". So this was a legal, binding contractual agreement; one that was considered quite proper and accepatable to the people of this time period. Never was an eyebrow raised or any point discussed on this issued amongst any of the companions or enemies of Islam, for that matter.

Another most convincing fact is, Ayesha had already been engaged prior to her father offering her in marriage to Muhammad, peace be upon him.

In this article we discover that even in our ancestors here in America the age of consent was much different than what we have today. -- Read:

1 A.D. -- (Augustus Ceasor) Traditionally the age at which individuals could come together in a sexual union was something either for the family to decide or a matter of tribal custom. Probably in most cases this coincided with the onset of MENARCHE in girls and the appearance of pubic hair in boys, that is, between twelve and fourteen, but the boundaries remained fluid. In much of classical Greece this was true of both same- and opposite-sex relationships. In Republican Rome, marriage and the age of consent were initially private matters between the families involved. Not until the time of Augustus in the first century C.E. did the state begin to intervene. Marriage then legally became a two-step process, a betrothal which involved an enforceable agreement between the heads of two households, and then marriage itself. Women who were not yet of agecould be betrothed with the consent of their fathers, but the woman herself had to consent to marriage. (This was still true in the 600's in Arabia; fathers could contract a marriage for their immature daughters of any age - even without their consent. However, when Islam came, girls had to be old enough for marriage [past puberty] and accept the proposal).
The Roman tradition influenced peoples and cultures with whom it had come in contact. In the Islamic tradition following Muhammad, betrothal could take place earlier than PUBERTY, perhaps as early as seven, but the marriage was not supposed to be consummated until the girl menstruated and was of age. In medieval Europe, Gratian, the influential founder of Canon law in the twelfth century, accepted the traditional age of puberty for marriage (between 12 and 14) but he also said consent was "meaningful" if the children were older than seven. Some authorities said consent could take place earlier. Such a marriage would be permanent as long as neither party sought annulment before reaching puberty (12 for girls and 14 for boys) or if they had already consummated the marriage. Even if the husband had technically raped his wife before she reached puberty, the marriage was regarded as consummated. It was this policy which was carried over into English common law, and although consent was necessary, force and influence or persuasion seemed to have been permissible elements. Similarly Gratian's ideas about age became part of European civil law.
The age of consent in both English and continental law seemed to be particularly elastic when property was involved or family alliances were at stake. For example in 1564, a three year old named John was married to a two year old named Jane in the Bishop's Court in Chester, England. Though Shakespeare set his Romeo and Juliet in Verona, the fact that Juliet was thirteen probably reflects the reality in England. Her mother, who was twenty-six, calls her almost an old maid.
The American colonies followed the English tradition but the law could at best be called a guide. For example in Virginia in 1689, Mary Hathaway was only nine (9) when she was married to William Williams. We know of her case only because two years later she sued for divorce, and was released from the covenant she had made because the marriage had not been consummated. Interestingly, historian Holly Brewer, who discovered the case, speculated that if William had raped Mary, she probably would not have been given the divorce.
1600's -- The only reliable data on age at marriage in England in the early modern period comes from Inquisitions Post Mortem (after death) which involved only those who died and left property. It appears that the more complete the records, the more likely it is to discover young marriages. Judges honored marriages based on mutual consent at age younger than seven (7), in spite of what Gratian had said, and there are recorded marriages of two (2) and (3) three year olds. The seventeenth-century lawyer Henry Swinburne distinguished between the marriages of those under seven (7)  and those between seven and puberty. He wrote that those under seven who had said their vows had to ratify it afterwards by giving kisses and embraces, by laying together, by exchanging gifts or tokens, or by calling each other husband or wife.
1600's -- A contemporary, Philip Stubbes, wrote that in sixteenth-century East Anglia, infants still in swaddling clothes were married.
1600's -- The most influential legal text of the seventeenth century in England, that of Sir Edward Coke, made it clear that the marriage of girls under twelve (12) was normal, and the age at which a girl who was a wife was eligible for a dower from her husband's estate was nine (9 years old) even though her husband be only four (4) years old.
The age of consent was more variable than a summary of the law seems to imply. Peter Laslett, for example, used available statistics to argue marriage and child bearing in the late teens was not common in England and marriage at twelve was virtually unknown. The problem is that his statistics might well be skewed because in England only a small portion of marriages were registered, and even on these registrations it is difficult to tell if they recorded first or second or later marriages. A second marriage by a man in his late fifties or a woman in her early thirties skews the data. Not all marriage records even bother to record the participants' ages. Unrecorded are marriages without parental consent and private weddings and the quality of data varies from region to region. For example in the parish of Middlesex County, Virginia, there is a record of fourteen-year-old Sarah Halfhide marrying twenty-one-year-old Richard Perrot. Only in the last sentence of the register does it indicate that she was a widow. Did the compiler read that far? We simply do not know what her age at first marriage was, or even if it had been consummated. Of the ninety-eight girls on the ten-year register, three probably married at age eight, one at twelve, one at thirteen, and two at fourteen. Historians in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have sometimes been reluctant to accept data regarding young ages of marriage, holding instead that the recorded age was a misreading by a later copier of the records. Natalie Davis, whose book The Return of Martin Guerre became a movie, made her heroine, Bertrande, much older than the nine-to ten-year old girl she was when she married her missing husband.
In the nineteenth century France issued the Napoleonic Code and many other countries, following France's example, began revising their laws. The Napoleonic Code, however, had not changed the age of consent, which remained at thirteen. When historian Magnus Hirschfeld surveyed the age of consent of some fifty countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) at the beginning of the twentieth century, the age of consent was twelve in fifteen countries, thirteen in seven, fourteen in five, fifteen in four, and sixteen in five. In the remaining countries it remained unclear. In England and the United States, feminist agitation in the late nineteenth century called attention to the young age of consent and called for changes in the law. By the 1920s the age of consent, a state issue in the United States, was raised in every state and ranged from fourteen to eighteen, with most states settling on sixteen or eighteen.
In the last part of the twentieth century the U.S. public once again took note of age of consent issues. Although sometimes it is not possible to identify a single age of consent since the statutory age varies with the age of the defendant and with the particular sexual activity, in the United States as of 2000 the age at which a person may engage in any sexual conduct permitted to adults within a particular state ranges between fourteen to eighteen. In the vast majority of states the age is either fifteen or sixteen. Most states set the minimum age for marriage without parental approval at eighteen, and there are elaborate provisions governing which parent must give consent and who qualifies as a custodial parent or guardian when marriage under eighteen takes place. There are occasional contradictions since some states will allow a minor to marry with parental permission at an age when the minor cannot engage in legal sexual activity, while others allow a minor to engage in sexual activity years before he or she can marry without parental approval.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amundsen, D.W., and C. J. Diers. 1969. "The Age of Menarche in Classical Greece and Rome." Human Biology 41: 125-132.
Balsdon, J. P. V. D. 1962. Roman Women: Their History and Habits. London: The Bodley Head.
Brundage, James. 1987. Law, Sex, and Society in Christian Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bullough, Vern L. 1976. Sexual Variance in Society and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bullough, Vern L. 1981. "Age at Menarche: A Misunderstanding." Science 213: 365-366.
Coke, Edward. 1719. The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, 11th edition. London.
Davis, Natalie. 1983. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Friedlander, L. 1913. Roman Life and Manners Under the Early Empire. London: Gough.
Furnivall, Frederick J. 1897. Child Marriages, Divorces, and Ratification in the Diocese of Chester, A.D. 1561-6. London: Early English Text Society.
Hirschfeld, Magnus. 2000. The Homosexuality of Men and Women. Trans. Michael Lombardi-Nash. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Laslett, Peter. 1984. The World We Have Lost: Further Explored. New York: Scribner.
Percy, William A. 1996. Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Posner, Richard A. and Katharine B. Silbaugh. 1996. A Guide to America's Sex Laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Post, G.B. 1974. "Another Demographic Use of Inquisitions Post Mortem." Journal of the Society of Archivists 5: 110-114.
Stubbes, Philip. 1965 [1583]. Anatomie of Abuses in Ailgna [Anglia]. Vaduz: Kraus Reprint.
Westermarck, Edward. 1922. The History of Human Marriage, 5th edition. 3 vols. New York: Allerton.

Where did we get this? -- www.faqs.org/childhood/A-Ar/Age-of-Consent.html

courtesy: http://www.islamnewsroom.com/news-we-need/1783

Reincarnation: Reality or Myth?

WRITTEN BY MUSHAFIQ SULTAN

Source:  http://www.islamhinduism.com/hinduism/analysis/103-reincarnation-reality-or-myth

The theory of Re-incarnation of souls, also known as the cycle of birth and death, is very central to Hindu philosophy. To a common Muslim this is a new idea which he/she has not previously encountered. We may not accept it, but we cannot cavil at the logic of it; more especially as it is born from the same causes which, in Muslim theology, give rise to the concept of Hell and Paradise. If life on earth is a  life of preparation in which we have to attain certain qualifications essential for our entry into Paradise (Brahma Lok in the words of Shri Krishna), will it not be necessary, so would argue a Hindu divine, for us to return to earthly life again, if we have left it without acquiring the necessary perfection?

We had to attain certain experiences not available in the next world; we left this world without doing so and consequently we do need to come back to it again. This logic is not bad and the reasoning is quite plausible; but they do not coincide with what we observe in the universe.

For example, a fruit may leave a tree in defective condition. It need not go back into the branch of the tree it came from, to make up its deficiencies. The food we eat everyday will eventually take the form of a sperm and ovum, which will convert itself into the human shape of a child. The sperm has to pass through many stages before it reaches that stage. Things not properly cooked are sometimes taken in by us; they cause pains in the stomach, but the trouble is removed by medical treatment. The food is not sent back from stomach to the kitchen to be cooked again. We take medicine to help digestion, and enable the food to pass through the regions where it is made into blood. Sometimes, when, through the function of the stomach or through the function of a diseased liver, we produce poor blood, we seek a remedy in medicine, but no drop of that poor blood is allowed to return to the liver or the stomach for the purpose of rectification.

If therefore, this rule be universal in Nature, that the thing which has failed to attain the requisite state of perfection in one state of being is passed into the state of being next highest, where its deficiencies are corrected; and if such a system be more expedient and more conducive to the rapidity of the real progress then I fail to find any reason for subscribing to the theory of re-incarnation or transmigration of the soul.

THEORY OF KARMA

Closely linked to this theory is the doctrine of Karma (actions). The two, in fact, are one and the same theory, representing different aspects of the same doctrine. The doctrine of Karma takes for its genesis the diversity of circumstances in which people find themselves at their birth, from causes beyond their control. Some are born in affluence, poverty and indigence; some are born into the world with bodily defects, while others are blessed with bodily perfection; and this disparity, producing arbitrarily, comfort and discomfort, happiness and misery does seem a strange blot on the Divine Providence.

The theory of Karma, in Hindu theology, thus explains this seeming incongruity in the Divine dispensation. According to this theory, all that we receive at our birth in the form of happiness or misery, and all the differences in social status that come into our being at birth are the outcome of our deeds in the life before the present life. We take birth after birth to complete our course on this earth, and what we sow in the one; we must reap in the next. No one would question the logic of the view that human society works on the Laws of Actions. That actions must bear their fruit is the basic principle of every other religion, except Pauline Christianity. Differences in social position, in many cases, undoubtedly arise from our own actions. We are the creators of our own comfort and misery.

According to this philosophy, inferiority of a person to a second person in the social scale is due some of his sins in his bygone life. However, differences in occupation and employment are the motive power of social machinery. We must serve each other in a wide variety of differing capacities, if adequate contribution is to be made to the common comfort.  If, however, difference of this kind is attributed to some past sin, then comfort and progress must demand the existence of evil. Men of one generation must necessarily commit sin so that, in the next, they may be reborn in the lower for the purpose of contributing to the happiness of the upper social stratum. What kind of philosophy is that considers sin and misdeeds essential to maintain and sustain the cycle of life. It is absurd on the very face of it. The process of procreation demands difference of sex. You may ascribe your present difference from another man to some cause in your previous life, but where were the actions which caused difference of sex in the first pair, whence our species has its being?

HAPPINESS A BENEFICENCE AND NOT A FRUIT OF ACTION

If all our present means of happiness are given to us as a reward for past actions, how are we to explain the happiness which comes to us providentially? Much of our happiness is derived from the varied manifestations of Nature, like the Sun, the Moon, the Earth and all that it provides; and the proportion of happiness that we acquire through our actions depends too, upon the working out, by us, of sources of Nature which were in existence long before man came on the Earth. How can all this be the reward of our past actions? We cannot live without the pre-existence of millions of things in the universe; they all add to our happiness. They all come as beneficence of God, and not in reward of actions. Divine Providence, as exhibited in Nature, makes Divine Blessing, which is the main store of our happiness, a pre-existing thing; while the theory of Karma makes our actions to pre-exist the Divine Blessing, which is absurd on the face of it.

If all our happiness has to arise from out actions, our happiness would be next to nothing. What comes out of our actions in the shape of happiness sinks into insignificance when compared with what we get as Divine Blessings. If we get everything due to the actions of our past life, then we need not be grateful to God anymore. As you can see, this is a blot on the Beneficence of God.

THE THEORY WEAKENS THE SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY

If our actions receive their birth and mould from our beliefs, we should not entertain any tenet or doctrine which tends to ruin our sense of responsibility, and to create in us oral or mental imbecility. Fatalism, in the received sense of the word, was condemned by Islam for this very reason. Vicarious Atonement in Christianity is another condemnable belief. If another has to bear the burden my burden, incentive for action, on my part, is lost. Similarly, we strive hard to alleviate our misery, because we believe that it is possible to alleviate it; but when we find that our trouble is absolutely without remedy, our zeal is gone, for what is the use of trying in such a case? Our misery, under the theory of Karma has come to us as the fruit of some past actions. It cannot be undone, and all our efforts to undo it will be in vain. I committed some wrong in a previous life, I must suffer for its consequences in the present life, and all my efforts to be free from it are simply to give the lie to that theory. If 'A' is down will cholera which he has got on account of some past wrong, it hardly befit him to seek medical relief if he subscribes to the principle of Karma. The theory thus makes man a fatalist and thereby impedes human progress.

Pain in this life, they say, is the penalty of past actions. If persecution and want of comfort may come within the category of pain, no progress in human society has, till now, been achieved with them as the famous proverb goes, "No gains without pains". The world has seen its best benefactors in the persons of prophets, reformers and philosophers, but, unfortunately, there are the persons who have always been subjected to every kind of persecution. Similarly all scientific discoveries, to which we owe so much of our comfort and happiness, are fruits of pain and hardship. Should we believe that all these great teachers and inventors were wicked men and sinners in the past life, because they have been for the most part persecuted people and leading the most painful lives?

No one gets happiness without some pain and according to this theory; pain is the penalty of sin. Evil therefore becomes essential for enjoying happiness in the life to come. Such a theory cannot give birth to high character. If 'A' receives some injury from 'B', it is, as a Hindu would say, to make up for some injury received by 'B' from 'A' in his previous birth. Thus, offence becomes a justification in the eye of a culprit, if he believes in the philosophy of Karma. I need not be thankful to my benefactors, because, I receive from them only what I gave to them in charity in the past life. The more I think upon this subject, keeping in view all the consequences to which such beliefs much logically lead, the more I am strengthened in my conviction that this philosophy is most unfavourable to our moral growth.

The explanation given by our Holy Quran of the misery around us, and of the social differences which we have been discussing, appeals to me more, as it strengthens my sense of responsibility. Parents are more interested in their children than in their own selves. the welfare of the family often keeps its members away from such misdeeds as are sometimes unscrupulously committed by those who lead single lives.

If the consequences of every action I do be shared by my own children, I shall make my actions more steady and righteous. But if I alone have to reap what I sow, despair or temptation may, sometimes, lead me to extremes.  Belief, therefore, that children born with bodily defects, owe their misfortune to paternity, which sometimes may come to them from three or four generations back, will generally prove a more efficacious check to intemperate actions, than the belief that the children are themselves responsible for their physical deficiencies. A person may not care much for the evil consequences of his actions if they are to be confined to him; but his care to see his family happy may reform him.

PLEASURE AND PAIN

The whole difficulty is one of misconception; or rather to conceive adequately of pain, or of pleasure, or of the real object and purpose of this our earthly pilgrimage; for what is pain to one is pleasure to another, who is to decide whether prince or peasant sleeps sounder in the nights or whether the millionaire or the bricklayer has the just perception of the end of life? The sublimation of our consciousness is the main purpose of our sojourn on earth; riches and poverty are both helpful and harmful to this end; helpful to one and harmful to another; a blessing to 'A', a curse to 'B', and vice versa. Consequently, there can be no ground whatever for any theory which ascribes the prosperity and poverty of this life to the good and evil deeds of an existence that is past.

And the same is true of all other cases wherein different persons have been variously endowed with the gifts of God. In the ordinary way of life, the organs of sense are the vehicles of knowledge and any deficiency in one tends to strengthen the perceptive power of the others. Blind persons are more imaginative that those who possess the faculties of physical sight; and if imagination be a blessing and an aid to the perfection of knowledge, then here is a blessing disguised as a curse.

When sometimes a hard problem arises, to which it is necessary that we devote our whole minds, to the exclusion of all other matters, we choose to site with closed eyes, in a room apart, so that we may be distracted by neither seeing nor hearing. In other words, we deprive ourselves of the use of these senses in order that we may use those that remain to the fuller advantage. The implication of this would be that the use of these senses of hearing and sight causes a distraction to our imagination process. So, it follows, at least at that time, the loss of the organs of sense must be a blessing, if anything, a reward for the past good deeds, rather than the punishment of old misdoings.

Liam Neeson: I may become a Muslim

Catholic movie star is thinking about changing faith

By PETE SAMSON

Mosque-ars ... star Liam Neeson

HOLLYWOOD star Liam Neeson is considering giving up his Catholic belief and becoming a Muslim.

The actor, 59, admitted Islamic prayer "got into his spirit" while filming in Turkish city Istanbul.

He said: "The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it's the most beautiful, beautiful thing.

"There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim."

Liam was raised in Northern Ireland as a devout Catholic and altar boy and was named after the local priest.

But the star — whose wife Natasha Richardson died aged 45 in a skiing accident in 2009 — has spoken about challenges to his faith.

He said: "I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?

"I'm constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism."

Liam was criticised in 2010 after claiming Narnia lion Aslan — voiced by him in the movies — is not based on Christ as CS Lewis had claimed but in fact all spiritual leaders including Mohammed.

His latest film The Grey, about an oil drilling team who crash in freezing Alaska, is released in the UK on Friday.

p.samson@the-sun.co.uk

courtesy: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4083596/Liam-Neeson-news-Liam-Neeson-is-thinking-about-becoming-a-Muslim.html

100,000 conversions and counting, meet the ex-Hindu who herds souls to the Hereafter

Deen Mohammad converted to Islam in 1989. He said when he read the Holy Quran he realised that 360 gods were useless. PHOTO:AYESHA MIR/EXPRESS

MATLI: Such are Deen Mohammad Shaikh’s powers of persuasion that he has converted 108,000 people to Islam since 1989, the year he left his birth religion Hinduism behind.

His multi-coloured business card describes the Matli dweller as the president of the Jamia Masjid Allah Wali and Madrassa Aisha Taleem-ul Quran – an institute for conversions to Islam.

The reedy 70-year-old brandishes an embellished cane. A red-and-white keffeiyah perched on his shoulder offers people a hint to his theological leanings.

As he speaks to The Express Tribune, his arm slices an invisible arc through the air. He is gesturing to a vast expanse of nine acres of donated land where converts are invited to pitch a tent and stay. “My heartfelt wish is that the entire world becomes Muslim,” comes his response, when asked about the en masse conversions. His piety is matched only by its ambition.

But contrary to the grandiose proclamation, this preacher isn’t a repository of rehearsed sound bites. It is only after he settles down on a charpoy that he deigns to embark on the journey of a Hindu named Jhangli who became an expert in evangelism.

“I always loved Islam,” he begins. “I read the Holy Quran and realised that 360 gods were not of any use to me.”

At first he had to study the Holy Quran in secret. There was the risk of being misunderstood if a Muslim caught him with the holy book. He started fasting and in fact he would begin a day before Ramazan started.

Shaikh’s mother grew alarmed at her son’s forays into another faith. She thought that if she married him off, he would not ‘leave’. Thus, he was barely 15 when his wedding took place, followed by a quick overtaking by nature – four girls and eight boys.

But despite this, he was drawn back to his curiosity and managed to find a teacher, Sain Mohammad Jagsi, who instructed him in the Holy Quran and Hadiths or sayings of the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh).

Fortunately, Shaikh’s uncle was of the same mind and the two men agreed that they would give each other the strength. Shaikh held off until his daughter was married to a Hindu as planned, since he had already “given his word”. Then there was no turning back.

After his conversion, Deen Mohammad Shaikh made it his mission to woo others. He began in his own backyard, preaching to family, before venturing beyond this comfort zone. Encounters with the rich and powerful helped pave the way. Retired Pakistan Army general Sikandar Hayat, who owns a sugar mill in Matli, offered Shaikh money, which he turned down. Instead, he urged Hayat to give jobs to some of the new converts. Hayat and his daughter proved extremely helpful in providing assistance.

Now, Shaikh says, his fame has spread and people come to him from as far as Balochistan, members of all religions and sects, who would like to convert. A small mosque has sprung up in his residential compound along with a number of rooms where children – mostly girls – are taught how to say their prayers and recite the Holy Quran.

One of the teachers is 14-year-old Sakina, who is just 15 days into the job. “Only a few students are difficult to teach,” she says while commenting on their ability to recite a text in an unknown language.

Shaikh is aware of the difficulties converts face while taking on what appear to be the initially daunting rigours of a brand new system. He makes life easy for the first 40 days. “They only have to pray farz!” he says while referring to the mandatory parts. This relaxed schedule ensures that they can ‘confirm their faith’. He understands that if he demanded they start out with praying five times a day to offer even the optional and ‘bonus’ parts, “They would run away!” as he puts it with a look of mock horror on his face.

Other than this, he is reluctant to actually explain how he influences the people. All he offers is a nugget of fire and brimstone: “I tell them that I was a Hindu too and that they would burn in Hell if they are not Muslim.”

More than saving a soul

There are other practical considerations that accompany conversions. In order to ‘save’ the converts from influential Hindus in other districts, Shaikh packs them off to Hub Chowk while the Kalima is still moist on their lips. “Their families would beat them up (for converting) otherwise,” he explains.

This trick of the ‘trade’ he learnt from personal experience. He alleges that he was kidnapped along with his daughter-in-law by influential Hindus who threatened him so that he would stop converting people. “They don’t want these poor Hindus to stand up to them when they become Muslims,” Shaikh maintains.

Despite 108,000 conversions, for which a record is kept, Shaikh still doesn’t feel his work is done. He wants everyone to be a Muslim and learn from his example. He also attends the Tablighi Jamaat’s annual congregation in Raiwind, although he doesn’t believe in sectarian divisions. “All groups are like brothers to me,” he declares.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd,  2012.

52 Great Famous People Converted to Islam 2010,2011

Hindu group 'flew Pakistan flag to create tension'

Six members of a right-wing Hindu group have been arrested in India's southern Karnataka state for raising Pakistan's national flag on a government building.

Police say those arrested belong to the Sri Rama Sena group.

The flag was raised in Sindgi, near Bijapur, on 1 January, leading to angry protests by Hindu organisations and the stoning of a Muslim prayer hall.

Police say Sri Rama Sena was trying to create "communal disharmony" in an area with a sizeable Muslim presence.

Sri Rama Sena is a fringe group that claimed responsibility for attacking women outside a pub in the coastal district of Mangalore in 2009, saying that allowing females in pubs was against Indian culture.

'Dividing society'

Inspector general of police Charan Reddy told the BBC the situation in Sindgi was "now peaceful".

"It seems they were out to create communal disharmony," he said.

Hindu organisations had called for strikes in a number of towns around Bijapur to protest against the flag-raising.

But Mr Reddy said police investigations had led them to members of the Sri Rama Sena, a group founded by Pramod Muthalik after it broke away from the Bajrang Dal, an affiliate of the long-standing Hindu nationalist organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Mr Muthalik is the leading suspect in the attack on the women in
Mangalore.

Former chief minister and Janata Dal Secular party leader HD Kumaraswamy said of the flag-raising: "It is such a shame. I blame the RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the incident. They want to divide society on religious lines."

Bijapur is close to Hyderabad in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and is a historic town with a sizeable Muslim population.

Police arrested Sri Rama Sena members for the desecration of a mosque in Mysore a few years ago.

The carcass of a pig was thrown near the prayer hall, an act that triggered major riots between Hindus and Muslims.

Karnataka was also rocked by a series of attacks on churches by right-wing groups in 2008, immediately after the BJP came to power.

Courtesy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-16424473

Victim of 9/11, Accepts Islam as the way of life.

Court orders Google and Facebook to remove all anti Islamic content.

Social websites including Google and Facebook have been ordered by an Indian court to remove all 'anti-religious' and 'anti-social' content within six weeks.
On Saturday a Delhi Court ordered 22 social networking sites, including Yahoo and Microsoft, to wipe the objectionable and defamatory contents and file compliance reports by February 6, 2012.
Additional Civil Judge Mukesh Kumar passed the order on a suit filed by Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi seeking to restrain the websites from circulating objectionable and defamatory contents.

Qasmi had objected to a number of images on the websites which he complained would cause 'irreparable loss and injury to the people who are offended by them'.
He argued that some of the images defamed Hindu gods, Prophet Mohammed and other religious figures, India Today website reported.
The order will raise serious questions about how users' posts and opinions will be edited, censorship and freedom of expression.

On December 22 Judge Kumar had issued summonses to the social networking sites, demanding they remove photographs, videos or texts that might offend religious sentiments, the Hindustan Times website reported.
The order comes a day after a criminal court issued summonses to the sites for facing trial for allegedly webcasting objectionable contents.

Santosh Pandey, appearing for complainant Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi, told The Hindu Times after the court hearing that the websites have to submit a report to the court by February 6 describing the action they had taken to remove the contents from the websites.
Representatives of Yahoo India Pvt Ltd and Microsoft told the court that they had not got copies of the order and complaint against them, but Qasmi's
The order comes at a controversial time as IT minister Kapil Sibal had recently discussed with representatives of some of the companies ways to guarantee the offensive contents are not posted.
India Today quoted him as saying: 'There were some demeaning, degrading, clearly pornographic depictions of gods and goddesses which no reasonable, sensible person anywhere in the world would accept, on any site.


counsel told the court that he would supply the relevant documents to them, according to the Hindustan Times.

Printing Money Without A Printing Press !!! A Brief Study of Conventional Banking System

A large number of banks have gone bankrupts due to loan losses or credit losses.But where does the money vanish ? Let me make it simple for my readers. Suppose if  you  put $1000 in a bank. As per the rule (with a little difference here and there, the bank cannot trade with your entire money, so it has to keep atleast 10 % ) The bank will keep $100 and it will lend out the remaining $900. Then I will apply for a loan and get $ 900.. But that is your money, right ? I may not pick up the money so it remain there in my account, but in the bank's ledger the amount is now  $1,900 !!! Then Robert applies for a loan, so he get from my $900, so he get $ 810,  but he too does not require it now so he sticks it inthe bank. There fore  in the Bank's ledger it is now 1710... and this goes on till your money is counted as $10,000 in the ledger but actually it is only $1000.

  It means there is no new wealth actually, unless every single money is paid back with interest. But we all know that not loans are paid back, and this is a global financial epedemic of not repaying your loans. And in the current crisis, many many loans aren’t being paid back – which means that dollars are out there that shouldn’t be out there – they are supposed to be representing wealth, but that wealth doesn’t exist, and never will, so the result is the inflation of the currency. This problem is created because of the “easy money” (banks can lend out almost an endless supply, so they do), so investors and loan recipients take unreasonable risks, and end up creating a buying/selling craze (like the recent housing bubble). An even worse result is that once the banks teeter on the brink of failure, the government swoops in and bails them out (which the banks knew the government would do – which is why they played games with our money) – with your money. Our money.

 Conventional banks are the biggest culprits of present  money crises. Look at another example. You are a middle class person who dreams of buying a house. So you put your wealth in fixed deposit for a few years hoping the wealth to grow and you can afford to buy a house. There are hundreds of  depositers likes you. What does the bank do with your money ? After all it has to pay big fat heavy salaries to its caravanic staff. So they will approach a builder. The builder  is running short of money to errect  his structure. So he has two options.

1. To sell his products quickly with a little margin like other products (grains, vegetables...)

2. Take a loan from the bank and complete the project without selling his product at a lesser price. This is more beneficial for him. There fore he takes a loan from the bank which was actually your money. So he waits for customers who can pay him more. Now you cannot buy that house because it is expensive, more than your savings plus interest. 

  So the bank comes to you again offering you EMI, Easy Money Installment. You are told that you will have to pay easily for next 220 months and own our house. And you fall for that. So your deposit is now mortgaged as a guarentee. In the end, the builder becomes richer and you have to slought for 220 months to own that flat which is actually bought by your own money via a housing loan and interest.

  One day you come to know that there are hundreds of defaulters who have not repaid the  loans, so the bank does not have money to pay salary and the  rent of huge offices and other bills. This is what has happened in global economy where besides individuals and companies, even nations and states are on the verge of bankruptsy...

Author: Nisaar Nadiadwala speaks and writes on socio-educational issues from Islamic perspective. He can be reached at nisaar_yusuf@yahoo.com