Britain isn’t worthy of Rushdie

salman rushdie, Chaudry Mohammad Afzal Sahi, Satanic Verses, Ahmed Deedat

Sunday, Oct. 1, 1989 was a typically chilly morning in London. That did not dampen the enthusiasm of thousands of angry British Muslims who were heading toward the Royal Albert Hall to hear a South African orator, Ahmed Deedat, rip into Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. Nearly 6,000 men, some bussed in from as far as Birmingham, jammed the hall. What happened at the start of the event tells us a lot about the Rushdie saga, which it seems, will not die until the man they now call Sir Salman is sent to his death.

El-Farra: Palestinians must have hope to move forward

Hamas, Gaza, sanctions, South Africa

Sanctions imposed after the election of Hamas made hard lives harder, but we must not forget that even under the "moderate" leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas we did not control trade in and out of Gaza. "There is a seeming reflex," United Nations peace envoy Alvaro de Soto said in a report, "in any given situation where the UN is to take a position, to ask first how Israel or Washington will react rather than what is the right position to take."

Islam in the Western mirror

Christian fundamentalists, Islam, Western, 'the Islamic Threat', Dr. Nasir Khan

Present-day images of Muslims and Islam in Western media vary considerably. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union the general drift of Western concerns has been to portray Islam as the main enemy of the West and the Muslim world as a hotbed of terrorism that threatens Western civilisation and its democratic values. Thus in the present-day hegemonic world order -- under which all norms of civilised behaviour in the conduct of foreign policy have been discarded by the Bush Administration and its allies in London and Tel Aviv -- Muslims are associated with terrorism. We have seen over the last few years the expansion of President Bush’s destructive war, the inhuman treatment of captive population of Iraq and Afghanistan, rampant abuse of prisoners from Muslim countries by American and British forces, total indifference towards the human rights of prisoners of war or of those suspected of resisting or opposing the American occupation of their countries and false propaganda to cover up the real objectives and crimes against humanity of the neocon rulers in Washington and London.

A Drop from the Ocean: Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi and Sufi Path

Shams, Rumi, Sufi, Ahmad Ghazzali, William Chittick

Many have come to know Sufism through the poems of the Twelfth century poet Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, who was born in Balkh in present day Afghanistan in the year A.H. 604/ 1207 C.E. His poems exemplify an understanding of the Sufi path towards God as well as the body of esoteric knowledge and practices associated with this path. The best image to describe Sufism is that of a river, snaking its way through history, touching along its way different cultures and societies, accepting and rejecting attributes and practices as it flows. As such an ambiguous category of religious experience, there is much debate about its origins, practices and prescriptions, amongst both its practitioners and those attempting to define it.

Interview With Randa Abdel-Fattah author of

Scholastic Inc., Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big in This, Young Adult

What inspired you to write Does My Head Look Big In This? It became apparent to me that the only time Muslim females appeared as heroines in books were as escapees of the Taliban, victims of an honour killing, or subjects of the Saudi royalty! I wrote Does My Head Look Big In This? because I wanted to fill that gap. I wanted to write a book which debunked the common misconceptions about Muslims and which allowed readers to enter the world of the average Muslim teenage girl and see past the headlines and stereotypes- to realise that she was experiencing the same dramas and challenges of adolescence as her non-Muslim peers- and have a giggle in the process!