by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Riyadh : Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday thanked Saudi Arabia for increasing India’s quota for Islam’s most holy pilgrimage, the Haj.
At the inaugural ceremony of the Saudi national and cultural festival Al Janadriyah, where India has been given guest of honour country status this year, Sushma Swaraj said “a large number of my Muslim brothers and sisters from India visit Saudi Arabia every year for Haj and Umrah pilgrimage.
“Once again I thank Your Majesty for increasing the Haj quota for India in 2017 and also for the special arrangements and care given to the pilgrims,” she said.
Last month, Saudi Arabia increased the quota of Indians for the Haj pilgrimage by 5,000 from this year.
The decision by Riyadh came after Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi signed a bilateral annual agreement for Haj 2018 with Saudi Minister for Haj and Umrah Mohammad Saleh bin Taher Benten.
Now, a total of 1.75 lakh Indian citizens can go for Haj. Last year, Saudi Arabia increased India’s Haj quota by 35,000.
Sushma Swaraj said that India’s participation at the Al Janadriyah Festival “provided an opportunity to showcase our strong bilateral relationship”.
The visiting Indian minister received the festival’s patron Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at the India Pavilion showcasing the traditional and modern aspects of India.
“The Pavilion with the theme ‘Saudi ka dost Bharat’ is a big draw at Janadriyah,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Rveesh Kumar tweeted.
Earlier on Wednesday, Sushma Swaraj called on King Salman here and “steps to further intensify our strategic partnership in all sectors and to work together towards each other’s progress came up during (the) warm discussion,” according to Kumar.
Prior to that, Sushma Swaraj met her Saudi counterpart Adel Jubeir and discussed deepening of bilateral ties.
According to Kumar, the discussions between Sushma Swaraj and Jubeir focused on enhancing trade and investment, energy, defence and security, culture and people-to-people ties.
“The two Foreign Ministers also discussed the regional and global situation,” the spokesperson said.
The India-Saudi Arabia relationship was elevated to that of a Strategic Partnership during the visit of then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the Gulf kingdom in 2010.
Saudi Arabia is the fourth-largest trading partner for India with bilateral trade exceeding $25 billion in 2016-17.
As India’s largest supplier of crude oil, Saudi Arabia accounts for about 20 per cent of the total annual imports.
The Gulf nation is also home to around 3.2 million expatriate Indians, that includes a growing number of professionals, including doctors, software engineers and oil technologists.
Sushma Swaraj arrived here on Tuesday on a three-day visit in what is her first official visit to this Gulf kingdom.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : Faith groups protested on Friday against ongoing efforts by the Donald Trump administration to institute a ban on travel by residents of a number of Muslim-majority countries.
The demonstration in New York’s Washington Square Park took place a year after Trump’s first executive order setting out the ban, which has been blocked by the courts.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to decide the legality of the latest version of Trump’s ban, which affects residents from six countries instead of the original seven.
It pits an administration that considers the restrictions necessary for Americans’ security against challengers who claim it is illegally aimed at Muslims and stems from Trump’s campaign call for a “complete shutdown of Muslims” entering the US. The policy blocks entry into the US of most people from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
The justices plan to hear arguments in April and issue a final ruling by late June on a Trump policy that has repeatedly been blocked and struck down in the lower courts. On Friday protesters linked arms around a group of Muslim demonstrators who knelt to pray in Washington Square Park.
Rev Dr. Chloe Breyer, from the Interfaith Centre of New York, told Huffington Post: “It’s practically important and symbolically important to stand with people of different faith traditions. It’s what we should do as Americans.”
Trump’s first travel ban was issued almost a year ago, almost immediately after he took office, and was aimed at seven countries.
It triggered chaos and protests across the US as travelers were stopped from boarding international flights and detained at airports for hours. Trump tweaked the order after the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit refused to reinstate the ban.
The next version, unveiled in March, dropped Iraq from the list of covered countries and made it clear the 90-day ban covering Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen did not apply to those travelers who already had valid visas. It also dropped language that would give priority to religious minorities. Critics said the changes did not erase the legal problems with the ban.
The same appeals courts that are evaluating the current policy agreed with the challengers. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond said the ban “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.” The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump violated immigration law.
The Supreme Court allowed the ban to take partial effect but said those with a claim of a “bona fide” relationship with someone in the US could not be kept out of the country. Grandparents, cousins and other relatives were among those who could not be excluded.
But the high court said lower courts were wrong to apply the same limits to the new policy, at least while it is being appealed. The justices did not explain their brief order.
The third version is permanent, unlike the other two, and the administration said it is the product of a thorough review by several agencies of how other countries’ screen their own citizens and share information with the U.S.
Solicitor General Noel Francisco said in court papers that the policy is well within the President’s “broad authority to suspend or restrict the entry of aliens outside the United States when he deems it in the Nation’s interest.”
In response, the challengers said the policy violates the Constitution because it is biased against Muslims and also violates immigration law. The new version continues “the same unlawful policy” that was struck down by lower courts last year, lawyer Neal Katyal said in his brief on behalf of the challengers.
—SM/UNA-OIC
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneur, Startup Basics, Startup Financing
Ghiyasuddin Babukhan, chairman of the Hyderabad Zakat and Charitable Trust.
By Mohammed Shafeeq,
Hyderabad : One of the five pillars of Islam, “zakat” is mandatory charity for every well-to-do Muslim. And Hyderabad Zakat and Charitable Trust (HZCT) has shown how this obligatory form of charity can be channelised to bring change in society through education.
With this noble goal, the 25-year-old organisation has been using “zakat” to pull the community out of illiteracy and today more than 24,000 students study in its 106 schools.
The trust made a humble beginning in 1992 when Ghiasuddin Babukhan, a reputed businessman and philanthropist of this city, with some friends and other like-minded people came together to pool their “zakat” for education. “It started with total ‘zakat’ of just Rs 11 lakh,” recalled HZCT chairman Babukhan while talking to IANS.
With a firm belief in “empowerment through education and freedom through knowledge”, Babukhan and his friends formed a network of schools for poor, mostly in remote villages.
Though these Urdu-medium schools were taken over by the government under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the trust continues to monitor their functioning, appoint teachers, distribute free uniforms and books.
What started with a total “zakat” of just Rs 11 lakh has now expanded to an annual budget of Rs 12 crore and has touched the lives of over a million people in the last two-and-a-half decades, including poor students, orphans and widows in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Every Muslim whose assets reached “nisab” or minimum value (the current market price of 60.65 tolas of silver) has to pay 2.5 per cent annual Islamic tax on his wealth.
“People donate without any hassle. I don’t know 99 percent of the donors. I have never met them. We have ensured total transparency. No questions are asked except positive feedback from the donors. Some people come personally to donate huge amounts,” said Babukhan.
“I don’t know whether there is any trust of this size and calibre in India,” he added.
HZCT runs its activities professionally as it has 40 dedicated volunteers and a well-paid, full-time staff. It ensures transparency by publishing annual reports for the donors. Education accounts for over 70 percent of the trust’s spending of Rs 107 crore since its inception.
The trust is spending more than Rs 2.5 crore on schools alone and this includes salaries, uniforms, and “Gems of the Nation” cash awards of Rs 10,000 each to girl students who secure 9.3 GPA or above in the 10th Grade.
What is interesting about these schools is 70 percent of the students are girls. The pass percentage is 92 against the average of 57 in government-run schools.
“Our schools are a success story, not because I am handling it, but because Allah is handling it. For other works there can be several hurdles, but nobody can stop us in the area of education,” he said.
“More than 200,000 students have so far passed out of our schools and many have become professionals like doctors and engineers,” said Babukhan.
In 1996, Foundation for Economic and Education Development (FEED) was formed to run the institutes established by the trust. FEED set up the Hyderabad Institute of Excellence (HIE) in 2013 to hone the skills of meritorious students from poor and needy families to groom them as leaders with a strong sense of dignity, integrity, love for the country, and deep religious values.
Spread over 120 acres at Vikarabad near Hyderabad, this residential school boasts of world-class amenities and state-of-the-art infrastructure, providing education from 6th to 12th Grade. About 50 per cent of the students at HIE are on annual scholarship of Rs 2 lakh each.
It also prepares students for various competitive exams like IIT-JEE Mains and Advanced, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), Birla Institute of Technology Science Aptitude Test (BITSAT), and entrance exams to Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) and the National Defence Academy. In 2017, Hyderabad Institute of Excellence had 100 percent results in the Intermediate (12th Grade) with 13 students scoring above 98 per cent marks.
“The results over the last four years have been excellent as many students got admissions to reputed colleges in different parts of the country and also into IITs and NITs,” said Babukhan, who believes that the environment plays an important role in creating leaders.
The education programmes of the trust have so far benefited about 378,000 students. It now plans to focus on education of orphans.
The trust is providing financial aid to 10,000 orphans for education from school level to professional courses.
This year it disbursed Rs 1.60 crore for an orphan scholarship programme. It also spent Rs 1.70 crore for distribution of foodgrain, Iftar packs and clothes during Ramadan to about 4,000 widows and orphans and also for distribution of “zabiha” meat.
Other works undertaken by HZCT include relief activities during the Gujarat riots and earthquake, and the Kashmir earthquake and floods.
In 2016-17, HZCT spent Rs 5.57 crore on scholarships for professional courses, orphans and physically handicapped, Rs 1.75 crore on welfare schemes like feeding the poor, Rs 0.25 crore on remarriage of young widows, and Rs 0.12 crore on drinking water and borewells.
(The weekly feature series is part of a positive-journalism project of IANS and the Frank Islam Foundation. Mohammed Shafeeq can be contacted at m.shafeeq@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
For representational purpose only
By Nilova Roy Chaudhury,
There is a huge buzz throughout Saudi Arabia as the hitherto conservative Kingdom — seen as the religious font of Islam and home to its holiest shrines — gets ready to welcome women into its sports stadiums Friday.
The women of Saudi Arabia have entered 2018 with hope unlike ever before, for now they will be allowed greater freedom and perhaps play select sports — and drive. These efforts to bring gender parity are among a series of sweeping social and economic changes being orchestrated by the young Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to bring Saudi Arabia into a global leadership role in the 21st century.
The year 2017 was transformational for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with a series of initiatives designed to improve gender equality, promote economic diversification, root out corruption and make it more open and attractive to visitors.
Behind a vast majority of these path-breaking initiatives was Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the world’s youngest defence minister, who, at 32, was elevated to the position of Crown Prince last June. Initiatives he has taken form part of the “National Transformation Programme 2020” and the Kingdom’s “Vision 2030”, guidelines of which he outlined last year.
The most momentous of these have been on gender equality. For the first time, girls in public schools will be allowed to play sports and get physical education. The women of Saudi Arabia will be allowed to enter some of the country’s sports stadiums, earlier an all-male preserve, while a royal decree issued last September will allow women the right to drive in the country, beginning June.
In further social transformations, the municipality of the holy city of Madinah will be run by women. The women-only branch of the municipality will provide all the regular services offered by municipalities, including issuance of licences for commercial activities and construction permits, inspection campaigns and investment opportunities, among others.
These measures gained international recognition and Saudi Arabia was elected in 2017 to the UN Women’s Rights Commission for a four-year term.
Other than the major social impact, shrewd economic thoughts are behind these measures, as increasing women’s participation in the workplace will boost the economy and combat corruption.
The “National Transformation Programme 2020” aims to capitalise on the Kingdom’s youth dividend by opening up the country to more employment opportunities through sports and entertainment and to empower women. Opening the country to more entertainment, allowing musical concerts and even a Comic-Con event (a three-day festival of anime, pop art, video gaming and film-related events last year) was part of a wide-ranging push to reform the economy and society and restore what Prince Mohammed bin Salman called the “moderate” face of Islam.
The plan involves changing the education curriculum, increasing women’s participation in the workforce and investing in the entertainment and tourism sectors to create jobs for young people.
Equally far-reaching are efforts to open up the Kingdom to outsiders, by offering tourist visas for foreigners, from this year, and creating facilities to promote the country as a tourist destination. The Red Sea project, which aims to offer an unparalleled tourist destination, will be developed along with leading global hospitality firms and will not be subject to the Kingdom’s conservative rules.
Over 18 million foreigners visited Saudi Arabia last year, almost all on pilgrimage to Mecca. As tourism is the country’s second-most important sector, the Red Sea project will spearhead the diversification of the Saudi leisure industry.
Meanwhile, an ongoing nationwide anti-corruption drive culminated last November with the detention of four ministers, high-profile entrepreneurs and 11 princes, including a son of former King Abdullah and multi-billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal.
This not only consolidated the Crown Prince’s authority, but clearly sent out a message that the royal family was not immune from facing the law, hitherto unthinkable in the Kingdom where the descendants of Ibn Saud were seen as a law unto themselves. That members of the royal family could no longer take their privileges for granted became more apparent when princes, protesting a cut in their water and electricity consumption payments, were taken into custody in the first week of 2018.
“Vision 2030” outlines the Crown Prince’s intent to make the country the centre of the Islamic and Arab world, a hub connecting three continents and an economic and investment powerhouse.
That Prince Mohammed bin Salman is King Salman’s chosen successor and heads the Council for Economic Affairs and Development, which oversees the Kingdom’s economic affairs and also shapes its political and security policies, indicates that manifold measures he has initiated will be carried through.
After taking over as Crown Prince in June 2017, Mohammed signalled his intent to fight radicalisation and combat terrorism, spearheading a boycott of Qatar over its alleged support to terrorism. In October, the prince said the return of “moderate Islam” was central to his plans to modernise the Kingdom.
After a horrific terrorist attack killed over 300 people in Egypt, Mohammed declared a “war against terrorism” at the inaugural meeting of the 41-member Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC) in Riyadh in November saying, “We will not allow such elements to tarnish the image of Islam.”
With global climate change measures intensifying moves towards less dependence on fossil fuels, the Crown Prince’s Vision 2030 aims to drastically reduce the Kingdom’s reliance on oil while reforming, diversifying and privatising the economy.
The Crown Prince plans this year to sell about five per cent government stake in Aramco, the national oil company. He intends to create the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, worth up to $3 trillion, with money generated by partially privatising Saudi Aramco.
He also plans to create a $500 billion business and industrial zone extending to Jordan and Egypt. The 26,500 sq km city, known as NEOM, will focus on industries including advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, energy, entertainment, food and water. It will be powered entirely with wind power and solar energy.
The country has also announced plans to build a massive entertainment city in Riyadh. The 334 sq km city, almost the size of Las Vegas when ready, will offer cultural, entertainment and sporting activities. The Al-Qiddiya project will be part of Saudi Arabia’s diversification drive and boost economic development by creating major job opportunities for local men and women.
The project perhaps best captures Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s intent to radically transform the face of the Kingdom.
(Nilova Roy Chaudhury is a senior journalist. The views expressed are personal. She can be contacted at nilovarc@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Vikas Datta,
Title: Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea; Author: Shiraz Maher; Publisher: Penguin Random House UK: Pages: 292; Price: Rs 499
Fundamentalism is an inescapable feature of all religions, but becomes a problem when it takes an intolerably and indiscriminately violent form of a “holy war”. This is an issue in its heartland no doubt but exacerbates when it spills over into the wider world — and that is why Islamist jihadism is among the biggest challenges we face now.
But it is not enough to label its manifestations like Al Qaeda, and the more sophisticated and brutal Islamic State, or others, a bunch of medieval-minded, psychopathic zealots or think they can be bombed out of existence.
For the chief shortcoming — and cause of failure — of George W. Bush’s “Global War on Terror” was ignoring that it was fighting an idea — which cannot be defeated by force, however overwhelming, but by disproving them or better ideas.
Groups like the Al Qaeda or the IS, as this book argues, don’t just represent an instinctive repudiation of the Western political and social ideas, but a more calibrated and argued religious-based reaction to it. Whatever you may think of their arguments, they do exist, are based on religious principles — no matter how subjective or self-servingly distorted — but above all, not known widely, says Shiraz Maher here.
The activities of these jihadist groups do not only stimulate public interest in the political dimensions of the crises in the Islamic heartlands but also in the ideas which drive them on the ground, and that is what Maher, a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at Kings College, London, seeks to answer here.
“Islamic State is a Salafi-Jihadi movement, although the broader soteriology (salvation doctrine) of Salafism from which it is derived remains poorly understood by the public. Salafis are typically viewed with suspicion and often characterised as extremists because of their religious conservatism and aesthetic conformity.
“For men this would typically include a long and unkempt beard with a robe that stops just short of covering the ankle. For women in public it is most closely associated with the niqab, an enveloping veil which reveals only the eyes. To reduce Salafism to this alone is to compress a vast and complex tradition into a few lazy cariacatures,” he contends.
In his historical and theological analysis, Maher shows how the ideology of the IS is “neither new nor novel”, “its intellectual framework appears to sit within the mainstream tradition of Salafi-Jihadi thought” and it is a philosophy that “believes in progression through regression”.
After an invaluable exposition on how Salafi thought can be divided into its methods for change — violence, activism and quietism — and how they affect its attitude towards the state or global order, he examines the key features of the philosophy of Salafi-Jihadi — which is just one part of a broader spectrum.
After examining what scholars identify as its key characteristics, Maher identifies them as “tawhid” (unity of god), “hakimiyya” (extending the rule of Allah), “al wala wa-l-bara” (to love and hate for the sake of Allah), jihad and “takfir” (excommunication of those Muslims following a separate path) which both protect and promote the doctrine.
Subsequently, he goes on to expand on these, especially jihad, to explain their rationale for attacking enemies far away as a defensive measure, the rules of killing enemies, the law of retaliation, vicarious liability of common citizens in “enemy territory” and the use of human shields. Here he also shows their subjective interpretation of Islamic principles to justify their activities, while also making a credible postulate when the trend began — the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and crystallising in the Second Gulf War.
Alongside, he also shows how Salafi Jihadism’s “roots grounded in the experiences of Sunni Islam”, drawing in not only Islamist ideologues like Sayyid Qutb or Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, but also its South Asian influences, especially the writings of India’s prominent Islamic scholar Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi ‘Ali Mian’.
While Maher gives no solutions in his work which is thorough but mostly lucid — though the similar-sounding Arabic religious terms need regular flipping to a helpful glossary — it clearly shows the dimensions of the issue and how we need to be extra-vigilant to prevent religions being hijacked by radicals.
And then while he shows how jihadis stem from mainstream Islam, it also must be remembered that their fervour isn’t shared by the entire community.
(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
—IANS
