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Posts Tagged Islam

I didn’t realize how often Muslims get kicked off planes, until it happened to me Niala Mohammad, The Guardian

Posted by Jade in Donald Trump Islamophobe, Hate Speech, ISLAM=PEACE & BROTHERHOOD AMONG MANKIND, ISLAMOPHOBES, Islamophobia in America, PAKISTANI AMERICANS, State Sponsored Islamophobic Hate Speech, Trump, US FOREIGN POLICY & INTERNATIONAL LAW, USA on April 13th, 2017

I didn’t realize how often Muslims get kicked off planes until it happened to me

Niala Mohammad

A humiliating experience opened my eyes to discrimination that has become common in post-9/11 America under the pretext of safety and security

 
 
My friend and I were removed from an American Airlines flight for requesting water and asking why we were still aboard an idling plane.
My friend and I were removed from an American Airlines flight for requesting water and asking why we were still aboard an idling plane. Photograph: Courtesy of Niala Mohammad

A recent news report documented the removal of two Muslim women working for the federal government from an American Airline flight. On its surface, the airline staff appeared to be upholding safety regulations, but in reality, they were engaging in discriminatory practices. I know this to be true because I was one of the two women. We were removed from the plane for doing nothing more than requesting water and asking why we were still aboard an idling plane for more than five hours.

Although the incident was humiliating it was also eye-opening. Until it happened to me, neither my friend nor I had realised how common this trend had become. Passengers are removed from an aircraft for benign reasons such as asking for a beverage, a child harness, speaking a foreign language, changing or upgrading seats, taking pictures, making videos, or questioning a long delay. It isn’t just about what happened to me – increasingly Muslims are a part of a cycle of discrimination that targets them due to their appearance.

American Airlines states that they prohibit “discrimination of any kind” and ensure that their “policies require that we treat all our customers in a fair and courteous manner and discrimination due to race, ethnicity, religion, or skin colour is not tolerated”. However, this was not reflected in the treatment that I and other passengers received.

Shan Anand, a young, turbaned, Sikh man along with three of his Muslim friends were removed from an American Airlines flight travelling from Toronto to New York earlier this year. When I asked Shan why he thought he and his friends were removed from the flight he said: “We know why it happened, right? There were four of us, three are Muslim and I am Sikh.” When Shan and his friends asked American Airlines why they were removed, they were told: “There were inconsistencies of their behaviour travelling as a group.” But the explanation made no sense to Shan – he was travelling in a group of six with two Latinos, three South Asians and one Arab, yet only the South Asians and Arab were removed. Shan and his travel companions were told that “the crew felt unsafe”.

“Unsafe”: a trigger word commonly used as an excuse by airlines under the pretext of ensuring safety and security post-9/11. Nearly all Muslims have at some point been subject to secondary security screening selection, but being thrown off a plane was an entirely new level of humiliation for me.

Measuring discrimination

Khurram Ali, the former civil rights director for the Council on American-Islamic Relation’s (CAIR’s) New Jersey chapter, explains that the pilot of an aircraft is given a list of those passengers that are marked with the infamous SSSS on their boarding pass. The SSSS or *S* indicates someone needs to be scrutinised a bit further by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And although it is unknown if airline attendants have access to the names labelled SSSS by TSA on domestic flights, they do have access to their respective airline computer reservation system, which details passenger name and detailed information.

Although there is no published criteria used to select passengers for “random selection” or “suspicion”, Ali says: “It is happening to more and more people who are considered visibly Muslim.” Ali documented 27 airline discrimination complaint cases with three of those being “pulled off” or airline removal cases for CAIR’s New Jersey chapter during his short tenure. But as he pointed out, those numbers come nowhere near the amount being documented by CAIR on a national level.

CAIR has been fairly thorough in its documentation of discrimination against American Muslims, however, it is still in the process of aggregating data regarding Muslim airline passengers being “pulled off” planes. Corey Saylor, CAIR’s director of the department to monitor and combat Islamophobia, acknowledged that they “are seeing more airline cases”. But in regards to statistics, Saylor stated: “We do not have stats as of yet. We are working on it.”

The only cases the public is aware of are those documented in the media. I counted nine airline passenger removal cases involving American Muslims published in the media over the past 13 months. But if that isn’t indicative enough, just look at trending hashtags on social media like #FlyingWhileMuslim to understand and confirm the reality of rising discrimination.

The official reasons for removal of these passengers are all in relation to safety and security concerns. But there is no mistaking this trend toward discrimination of Muslims.. Here are a few examples:

  • Mohamed Ahmed Radwan made the flight attendant feel “uncomfortable” when he asked her why she called him out over the public tannoy with the words “I will be watching you”. (American Airlines, December 2015)
  • Shan Anand (quoted above), a turbaned Sikh man, and three of his Muslim friends were removed for making the airline attendant and captain “feel uneasy” after they upgraded their seats. (American Airlines, December 2015)
  • Khairuldeen Makhzoom, a Berkley student, was removed after he was heard saying the phrase “inshallah” in Arabic at the end of a telephone conversation. (Southwest Airlines, December 2015)
  • Hakima Abdulle, a hijabi woman, made her aircraft flight attendant “feel uncomfortable” after switching seats with another passenger. (Southwest Airlines, April 2016)
  • Mohamad and Eaman Shebley (also hijabi) along with their three children were removed from their flight due to a “safety of flight issue” after asking for a child harness for their toddler. (United Airlines, April 2016)
  • Nazia (hijabi) and Faisal Ali, a young couple, were removed for making the flight crew feel “uneasy” because her husband was sweating, saying Allah and texting. (Delta Airlines, July 2016)

Many instances have gone undocumented due to fear of victims being further targeted, labelled troublemakers and being put on a “no-fly” list. The silent acceptance of these incidents has enabled airlines to dismiss the arbitrary treatment of select passengers as compliance with airline security regulations post-9/11. This policy is not effective and ultimately makes Americans feel marginalised in our own country.

Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, or Mark for those that have trouble pronouncing his name, recalls his experience with Southwest Airlines as “tearful and humiliating”. Makhzoomi came to America after his father was executed in Iraq by Saddam Hussain: “I experienced dictatorship in Iraq and now I am experiencing it in the freest country in the world.”

The discrimination Khairuldeen faced in Oakland, California, was anything but subtle. Khairuldeen detailed how he was removed from the aircraft, questioned by airline representatives and security, cornered against a wall, searched, sniffed by dogs in public and later interrogated privately by the FBI. Southwest Airlines representative and the authorities that removed him from the plane berated him for having spoken Arabic aboard the aircraft. Khairuldeen recalled the Southwest Airlines representative, stating: “Why would you speak that language knowing the environment in an airport?”

Khairuldeen said: “I was excited because we were talking about my upcoming graduation from UC Berkley, saying ‘inshallah’. You know, we use this word 30 to 40 times in any given conversation.” The rest of Khairuldeen’s conversation revolved around what they served for dinner at an event he attended which hosted the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon. “I was telling my uncle that they served us chicken, mash potatoes and spinach for dinner at the event,” said Makhzoomi. Yet the authorities that escorted him and claimed to understand Arabic, accused him of “discussing martyrdom” in his telephone conversation.

An atmosphere of fear

Cenk Uygur, political commentator and co-founder of the Young Turks, believes that this issue goes beyond discrimination towards Muslims in particular. Uygur was also kicked off of an American Airlines flight but he doesn’t believe it was because of religion. “Was it religious? In my case, I don’t think it was racially motivated.” Uygur believes that the root of the matter boils down to power and compared airline attendant behaviour toward Muslims since 9/11 to police officers abusing their authority and using excessive force on African Americans. “After 9/11 airlines/flight attendants have taken up the ‘I can do whatever I want attitude’ in the name of security,” Uygur says. “In my opinion, the core of the problem is flight attendants are given unlimited power and they tend to abuse it. They tend to use their power on those they perceive to be powerless. And unfortunately, in America, the darker the skin colour the more powerless you are. And many Muslims tend to fit in that category.”

He adds: “By the way, it’s much harder on women because they are more visibly Muslim and they often bear the brunt of the burden of Islamophobia or discrimination.

“Donald Trump has given people permission to be Islamophobic and told them that it’s okay to discriminate against Muslims. Trump basically says, ‘If I become president I will systematically discriminate against them [Muslims],’” Uygur says.

Likewise, Khairuldeen Makhzoomi attributed the recent rise in discrimination towards Muslims to Donald Trump, saying, “Trump is using ‘Islamophobia’ to rise to political power.”

Trump’s statements have fostered and further instigated an atmosphere of fear and prejudice towards the estimated 6-7 million Muslims in America.

I’m an American and being labelled a safety threat is unacceptable in a country founded on tolerance and freedom.

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Saudi Arabia Is Redefining Islam for the World’s Largest Muslim Nation by Krithika Varagur/Mar 2, 2017

Posted by admin in CURRENT EVENTS on March 4th, 2017

King Salman’s historic visit to Indonesia is the culmination of a long campaign for influence.

When Saudi Arabia’s King Salman landed in Indonesia on Wednesday, he became the first Saudi monarch to visit the world’s largest Muslim-majority country since 1970. Officials in Jakarta had hoped the visit would help them strengthen business ties and secure $25 billion in resource investments. That’s largely been a bust—as of Thursday, the kingdom has agreed to just one new deal, for a relatively paltry $1 billion.
But Saudi Arabia has, for decades, been making investments of a different sort—those aimed at influencing Indonesian culture and religion. The king’s current visit is the apex of that methodical campaign, and “has the potential to accelerate the expansion of Saudi Arabia’s cultural resources in Indonesia,” according to Chris Chaplin, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asia. “In fact, given the size of his entourage, I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be a flurry of networking activity amongst Indonesian alumni of Saudi universities.”
Since 1980, Saudi Arabia has devoted millions of dollars to exporting its strict brand of Islam, Salafism, to historically tolerant and diverse Indonesia. It has built more than 150 mosques (albeit in a country that has about800,000), a huge free university in Jakarta, and several Arabic language institutes; supplied more than 100 boarding schools with books and teachers (albeit in a country estimated to have between 13,000 and 30,000 boarding schools); brought in preachers and teachers; and disbursed thousands of scholarships for graduate study in Saudi Arabia. All this adds up to a deep network of Saudi influence.
“The advent of Salafism in Indonesia is part of Saudi Arabia’s global project to spread its brand of Islam throughout the Muslim world,” said Din Wahid, an expert on Indonesian Salafism at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta.
Salaf is Arabic for “forebear,” and Salafism is a Sunni movement that advocates a return to the Islamic traditions of the Prophet Muhammad(PBUH) and his contemporaries. It arose in reaction to 18th-century European colonialism in the Middle East, but it took particular root in Saudi Arabia in the hands of the influential preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Al-Wahab’s alliance with the House of Saud in 1744 cemented Wahhabism as the spiritual backbone of the Saudi Arabian state. And in the 20th century, Saudi Arabia, which had become fabulously oil-rich, started to invest its considerable resources in propagating its ideology abroad.
The heart of Indonesian Salafism is the Institute for the Study of Islam and Arabic (LIPIA), a completely Saudi-funded university in South Jakarta whose campus was abuzz the day before the king’s visit.
“It’s really great that our two countries are becoming closer,” said one student who, like most of the other male students at LIPIA, had a wispy beard and wore cropped pants, per hadith verses stating that covering one’s ankles connotes arrogance. “I’ve been reading all the news about the royal visit. I hope to further my own studies in Saudi Arabia, God willing.”
LIPIA’s doors opened in 1980. Its ostensible purpose is to spread the Arabic language, and there’s not a word of the country’s official language, Bahasa Indonesia, on its campus—not a bathroom sign, not a library book. Tuition at LIPIA is free for all its 3,500 students. Music is considered bid’ah, an unnecessary innovation, and is prohibited, along with television and loud laughter. Men and women do not interact; classes of male students attend live lectures on one floor while female students watch the same lecture, live-streamed, on a separate floor.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs accredited LIPIA in 2015, which bodes well for the university’s push to open four more branches across the archipelago. Hammed al-Sultan, head of LIPIA’s Arabic language department, was confident that the satellite campuses would open by the fall of this year. But they will need their own green lights from the ministry, which has voiced concerns about whether they will uphold moderate Islam and Indonesia’s state philosophy of Pancasila, which enshrines religious tolerance.
When I asked whether LIPIA Jakarta already does this, al-Sultan said, “Pancasila … sorry, what is that again?” An LIPIA representative acting as our translator quickly briefed him on it. Al-Sultan said, “Yes, our integration of Pancasila is in progress since it was a requirement for our accreditation two years ago.”
Muhammad Adlin Sila of the Ministry of Religious Affairs was more frank.“We are concerned about some alumni from LIPIA who are big fans of khilafah [the caliphate of the Islamic State].”
Ulil-Abshar Abdalla, a LIPIA alumnus who now runs the Liberal Islam Network, said he found the university’s theological climate oppressive when he attended in the early 1990s. “Theology, which is a mandatory subject there, is only taught by committed Wahhabis, and I really think their ideology is antithetical to traditional Indonesian Islam, which is usually syncretic and relaxed,” he explained.
“Wahhabi, Wahhabi, Wahhabi… people love to throw around this term without knowing what it means!”
BeyondLIPIA, hundreds of Indonesians receive scholarships to study at Saudi universities every year. A few decades in, alumni of these programs are becoming nationally influential in their home country. Habib Rizieq, the founder of the Islamic Defenders Front, a hardline organization associated with religion-related violence, attended both LIPIA and King Saud University in Riyadh. Jafar Umar Thalib, who founded the militant Salafi group Laskar Jihad, also graduated from LIPIA. Right-wing Islamist leaders like Hidayat Nur Wahid, a member of parliament who earned three degrees on scholarship from the University of Medina, are prominent in mainstream politics.
LIPIA alumni have also set up pesantren, or Islamic boarding schools, across Indonesia. Many of the country’s 100-odd Salafi pesantren are supplied by Saudi Arabia with teachers, especially in the Arabic language, and textbooks, according to Din Wahid. For many poor families, these pesantren are the only feasible option for their kids’ schooling, despite ideological quibbles, Wahid said.
Enterprising Saudi envoys have even made inroads in places like Aceh, the westernmost Indonesian province that’s been wracked by natural disasters like the 2005 tsunami. “We have built mosques, hospitals, and schools there,” the Saudi ambassador to Indonesia, Mohammad Abdullah Alshuaibi, told me. “And an Arabic language institute.”
One reason Indonesia has been reluctant to push back on Saudi cultural advances is the all-important hajj quota, the number of citizens who can make the pilgrimage to Mecca in a given year. Indonesia gets the largest allowance in the world:221,000 this year. But decade-long hajj waiting lists are common in many provinces, and jeopardizing the national allowance could provoke a huge backlash, said Dadi Darmadi, a UIN researcher, and hajj expert.
“That being said, the Indonesian government has to be wiser and stop considering the hajj quota as a political gambit to attract more populist support in this country,” Darmadi said.
Nearly every Indonesian leader, from the president to the foreign minister to the Speaker of the House, has cited the hajj quota as an important focus of King Salman’s trip.
The first big policy objective announced for the visit, however, addressed not the hajj, but terrorism. A “pact to combat terrorism” will be the “centerpiece” of agreements signed in Indonesia this week, the Saudi ambassador, Alshuaibi, told reporterson Tuesday.
“We need King Salman to make a clear and bold statement denouncing radicalism.”
It’s ironic, then, that some of Indonesia’s leading jihadists have passed through Saudi institutions. Although Salafism is largely “quietist,” or discouraging of political activity, there is a growing faction of Salafi jihadists in Indonesia, according to Din Wahid. In 1972, Saudi money helped to found the “ivy league” of jihadist pesantren, the Al-Mukmin school in Ngruki, Central Java. The Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah received funding from Saudi charities in theearly 2000s.Salafi TV, YouTube channels, Facebook groups, and Telegram channels have become a fertile ground for female extremists and ISIS sympathizers in Indonesia in the last few years, according to a2017 reportfrom the Institute of Policy Analysis and Conflict (IPAC).
“We’ve been seeing some evidence of the transition from Salafism to extremism among female extremists of the ISIS generation,” said Nava Nuraniyah, an IPAC researcher. “On the other hand, though, Salafi ulama [scholars] in Indonesia are among the most vocal opponents of extremism,” she said, suggesting that Salafism acts as a bridge to extremism for some even as it acts as a deterrent for others.
Saudi Arabia has long pushed the notion that its rigorous, state-sanctioned version of Islam is actually a bulwark against violent extremism, and has partnered with countries like the United States to fight terrorist groups from al-Qaeda to ISIS. But as Indonesia’s recent history shows, the distinction between Salafism and jihadism is not clear-cut.
“We need King Salman to make a clear and bold statement denouncing radicalism,” said Yahya Cholil Staquf of the moderate Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama. Otherwise, he said, “His visit will be easily perceived as more support to radical Islamic movements in Indonesia, as it is already a common public understanding that those radical movements take theological reference from Saudi Wahhabism and have been enjoying various kinds of support from Saudi Arabia.”
The Saudi ambassador, for his part, thinks such fears about the ideological impact of Saudi investment are off-base. “Wahhabi, Wahhabi, Wahhabi… people love to throw around this term without knowing what it means!” Alshuaibi told me. “They make baseless accusations. It is crazy!”
And some Indonesian leaders remain cautiously optimistic about closer ties with Saudi Arabia. “The two countries face the same challenge of rising radicalism and intolerance, so cooperation in those areas will be beneficial,” Yenny Wahid, a moderate Muslim activist, toldReuters.
Indonesia may be the largest stage for Saudi Arabia’s cultural diplomacy, but it’s hardly the only one. Saudi Arabia builtsatellite campusesfor Egypt’s Al-Azhar university in the 1980s, funded Bosnianrebelsand later built themschools in the 1990s, bankrollednumerous madrassasin pre-Taliban Pakistan and Afghanistan, and sent 25,000 clerics to India between2011 and 2013. Al-Hattem, of LIPIA Jakarta, was previously stationed at Saudi outfits in Bosnia and Djibouti.
Observers have commented that the scales of power seem to be shifting in the Indonesia-Saudi relationship so that the former is now theoretically in a better position to resist unwanted expansion than it was in the early years of its republic.
“Our economic condition now is very different, almost reversed, since the last Saudi visit,” said Luthfi Assyanukie, a liberal Muslim academic. “I think we can utilize that to prudently regulate Saudi investments.” Sila, from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, said, “I think the Saudi government needs Indonesia more now than vice versa, not least in terms of the revenue from hajj pilgrims.”
As Saudi Arabia’s economy fluctuates and it enforcesausterity measuresat home, will it ramp up its global efforts or scale them back? It may not matter.
“Salafi pesantren, and Saudi-inspired religious education in general, no longer necessarily rely on Saudi donations, as followers have become incredibly adept at raising money locally,” Chaplin said.
As the rise of hardliners, the Arabic language, and Salafi jihadist cells in Indonesia show, Salafism has some undeniable, durable appeal here. In Indonesia, at least, Saudi Arabia is already seeing the fruits of its labor. This new religious ecosystem may be self-sustaining.
Reporting for this piece was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting

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Allah(swt) Bestows Highest Honour to Indian actress Monika a.k.a. Rekha Maruthiraj:The Newest Daughter of Islam

Posted by admin in Converts to Islam-Chosen Beloved of Allah (swt), Our Creator:Al-Fateer:Our Lord & Master on May 21st, 2016

The Greatest Honour For a Human:

When Allah (swt) Chooses them to follow Islam

Her conversion brought out the worst in Hindus

Whose Obsession with Sexism Denigrated Her Femininity As Sex Object 

 

 

 

She converts to Islam and quits films

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monica converts to Islam and quits films

Indian actress Monika a.k.a. Rekha Maruthiraj has converted to Islam. Previously musicians A.R.Rehman and Yuvan Shankar Raja had also converted to Islam. Monika is a South Indian south actress who has acted in more than 70 films of different Indian languages like Hindi, Malyalam, Telugu and Kannada.

The actress while talking to the media revealed that her name was MG Rahima. She also told the media that she started to follow the teachings of Islam back in the year 2010. However, she decided to announce it now to avoid getting film role offers and to remove doubts in the minds of many people, she said in a press meeting.

Monika also said, “My parents Maruti Raj and Gracy support my decision. My decision to follow Islam is not based on monetary concerns. The sole reason of my decision is that I was inspired towards its teachings. Islam has given peace and solace to my life.”

She also informed the media that this would be the end of her acting career. “I didn’t convert for the reason of love or money, I am not such a person. I like Islamic principles so I converted to Islam. I will intimate about my marriage to media once arranged by my parents and I really thank my dad for his full support. Hereafter, I won’t work in films”.

“Like many others, I was also thinking that Islam is an extremist religion. But now I found peace in Islam.” said Monika, who was wearing a burka

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Fallout from Donald Trump’s Anti-Muslim Campaign & Rants in the US?

Posted by admin in Bigotry, Global Islam, Hate, Islam: The Universal Message of Peace, Islamophobia in America, Racism on January 20th, 2016

 

 

 

 

Hate Monger Trump

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fallout from Donald Trump’s Anti-Muslim Campaign in the US?

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p style=”text-align: center;”>Donald Trump anti-Muslim rhetoric & Anti-Islam Rants
Published in Daily Pakistan (Pakistan) on 6 January 2016 by Editorial [link to original]
Translated from Urdu by Fauzia Iqbal. Edited by Victoria Branca.
Posted on January 12, 2016.

Nearly 200 Muslim employees were removed from their jobs for offering Friday prayers in the American state of Colorado. According to U.S. media, the administration of a meat processing factory took this step upon learning that factory workers had gone to offer Friday prayers. The workers — from Somalia and other countries — who had gone to offer Friday prayers, were prevented from re-entering the factory. It appears that the hate-rousing campaign against Muslims launched by U.S. presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is starting to show its effects now.

Muslims residing in different places throughout the U.S. all offer Friday prayers and, in most places, are facilitated in this by the government and the police. So much so, that even double parking is allowed outside mosques at the time of Friday prayers — something that is generally never allowed. This suggests that the factory owner’s orders were given on account of some current provocation. It is possible that he is a supporter of Trump. Knowing it is unlikely that Trump will become president, he sought to punish Muslims for offering Friday prayers as a means of implementing Trump’s anti-Muslim views.

Praying at prescribed times is binding on Muslims and the blessed Friday prayers have to be offered in a mosque. These Muslims sacrificed their jobs for the sake of their religious duties. Now Muslims must unite to prepare some framework for dealing with the situation.

 

Reference

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‘Islamic’ Military Coalition – Really?

Posted by admin in Akhuwat Millat-i-Islamia on December 28th, 2015

 
 “Verily, God does not change men’s condition unless they change their inner selves.” Quran 13:11
 
 
 

‘Islamic’ Military Coalition – Really?

 

By

 Syeda Qudsia Mashhadi

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Islamic’ Military Coalition – Really?

By

 Syeda Qudsia Mashhadi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The recent announcement of an ‘Islamic’ Military Coalition by the Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia has raised some questions. The first thing that hits home is the fact that no Shia Muslim country is a part of this Islamic Coalition. I am all for a strong military coalition that has representation from all Muslim countries. This coalition on the other hand, does not include ‘all’; on the contrary, it sidelines some countries on the basis of sectarian differences. One wonders why the Ummah keeps on playing in the hands of Zionists and dividing itself on the basis of sects. Why this ‘Islamic’ military coalition comprises of only Sunni Muslim countries? Are we so blind that we cannot see that this military coalition of ‘Islamic’ states will further the divide between Sunnis and Shias?

Sputnik International also reported on this sectarian selection of Muslim countries:

According to al-Gharaoui, a member of the Iraqi Parliament’s Security Committee, the new initiative may lead to a further division in the Muslim society and deepen the split between various courses of Islam. The coalition, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey, among other nations, was created “to counteract terrorism, which became a threat to the interests of the Islamic nation,” according to an official statement of Riyadh authorities.

According to the Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman Al Saud, the coalition will fight not only against Daesh, but also against other terrorist groups. It is unclear what exactly he means by ‘other terrorist groups’. The Saudis did mention one militant group though: Hezbollah. This is alarming as Hezbollah has been fighting for Palestinians and offering resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. They are not viewed as a ‘terrorist’ group like the Daesh, rather looked upon with respect amongst the oppressed Muslims. It would be better for Saudis to first ask Iraqi and Palestinian Muslims what they think about Hezbollah before labeling them as terrorists!

If this military coalition is expected to serve any purpose, it must include all Shia Muslim countries as well. The Muslim world is incomplete without Iran, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. It is ironical that the countries most infested with ISIS/Daesh, like Iraq and Syria, are not included in this military coalition! Who is Saudi Arabia fooling?

As a Sunni Muslim, it is painful for me to see the way we were pushing Shia Muslims away from us. They are our brothers and we should bridge the gaps instead of highlighting the minor differences we have them. Have we forgotten the lesson of peace and unity that our Prophet PBUH preached all his life?

I don’t have any hope of any intelligent or reasonable response from Pakistan’s political leadership; the ones who are incapable of handling their own country properly cannot be expected to lead the whole Ummah at times of crises. I do, however, expect Pakistan’s military leadership to be watchful while being part of any coalition that aims to target other Muslim countries or sects. These are truly the most testing times for the Ummah and we see the situation worsening gradually. The only hope of salvation is by returning to our Deen and the message of Quran, but we deliberately choose to ignore it.

What to say about other Muslim countries when the so-called ‘custodian’ of ‘Harmain Shareefain is the biggest supporter and abettor of terrorism in the world! It is sickening and revolting to see that they would rather support the Zionist and Apartheid state of Israel than the Muslim Shia Iran! They would rather support the cut-throats of Daesh Khawarij then support the Shia Muslim, Bashar al Assad, who is still, by the way, the legitimate ruler of Syria, however despotic or dictatorial he may be, is a separate debate altogether.

No country has the right to interfere in the internal matters of any other sovereign state. Whether it is the USA, the so-called super power of the world or KSA, the so-called leader of Ummah, none of them has the right to run every country the way they want! They do not have the right to bring a regime of their choice in other countries. Period. If we have any sense of dignity and integrity as human beings, we, the countries silently watching, should call their bluff.

Time of empty rhetoric is long gone. We do not need another ‘Organization of Islamic Cooperation’ which failed miserably to do what was expected of it. Those countries, who have been openly giving aid to terrorists just so they could topple the leadership of the rival countries, have not done any service to Islam or the world. Such countries need to show with their actions that they will no longer support terrorists but rather support those neighbouring Muslim countries that they have been bombing!

Are we as human beings content to see new videos of gruesome executions released repeatedly by the monsters of ISIS? Are we content to see daily the children in schools and hospitals being bombed in Syria, Yemen and Palestine? Because if all of this is acceptable to us, then we do not have the right to inhabit this planet anymore, and it’s only poetic justice that we all kill ourselves in senseless wars over pointless issues.

 

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