Miscellany

I am busy trying to close out a project (a development an engineernig system made up of GIS-SQL-EDMS, which I have been doing for the year, single-handedly!), so have had little free time to pay too much attention to this blog. Nonetheless, I shall post something considerabely large in the next few hours, insha'Allah.

In the meantime, here are a few news stories, and other miscellaneous items, that caught my attention.

Murder, in the name of 'honour'. Not once, but twice. The response? Fairly pathetic, even by the usual standards of the MCB (I couldn't find anything on their website).

'Popular Islam', the air-conditioned variety, in Egypt (via Path of the Paddle). One commentator on Path of the Paddle described this development (if true) as the creation of a 'flabby religion'. I agree.

Newsnight (8 October) had a special feature on French attempts to create a secularised 'French Islam', in an effort to combat the 'radical' message being preached in mosques in some part of the country. This French lacisme has always been far more anti-religion, than the more tolerant, yet still atheistic, English secular tradition. You can see the difference between the two, in the impression it has made on former colonies of the two countries. The 'utter secularity' (to use Martin Marty's words) of the Continental Europeans, primarily the French, has produced autocratic secular fundamentalists; Tunisia and Algeria are two prime examples. Here the state ends up controlling religion for its own ends, if not trying to completely obliterate the religion. It seems a reverse of the ceaserpaporism of the Catholic Church. The 'mere secularity' of the British, has produced less virulent anti-religious secularist ideologues. In fact, this has allowed (relatively speaking) more breathing space for Muslims in the Subcontinent to try and re-engage in their religion, intellectually as well as emotionally.

Mash'Allah, Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights activist, wins the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. May God give her strength in her difficult task.

This weekend (12 October), is the third ExpoIslamia, at the Wembley Conference Centre. More often than not, I have tended to avoid such large gatherings of 'esteemed' personalities from across the Muslim world, because more often than not issues are rarely discussed which are relevent, of which education and social activism are the two most important. Instead they can tend to degrade into back-slapping, or slandering of various 'sects', or a public display of hatred against "the Kaafir". This time however, I am looking forward to seeing Tariq Ramadan speaking, the man Time called the 'Muslim Martin Luther', and hoping that, because this conference has been arranged by the Islamic Forum for Europe, we will be discussing issues which face Muslims of Europe, as Muslim citizens of Europe, rather than as merely Muslims who happen to be in Europe due to fate. Further, concentrating on issues which face Muslims in the Middle East, or Indo-Pak, or elsewhere, cannot help those who have only ever lived in a 'foreign' place, such as Europe or the USA. (That is not dismiss or belittle these global issues.)

Comments

[Mabruk]

Dear brothers in islam,

RQUEST FOR QUR'ANS AND ISLAMIC BOOKS.
I am very happy to write you this letter.how are you all?I hope you are fine by the Grace of mighty Allah.The main reason why i am wrting you this letter is that i want you to know about my condition.
Please i am called Mabruk and i have open a new library since last year and yet i dont have any Qur'an and Kutubs in the library.So please i want you to send me some Qur'ans and Kutub's to put them in the library so that people will come from far and near to read some of the Qur'ans and Kutubs.Even Allah says in His only Qur'an that any muslim who will help the other muslim he/she will be blessed.So please try as much as you can and send the Qur'an and the Kutub's.Thank you.please here is the name of the library and it's address:
Al-Mabrukat Islamic Library
P.O.BOX AS 85
Asawasi-Kumasi
Ghana-W/A.

Yours sincerely
Mabruk.