When a friend from Bangladesh gifted me a jute bag with the Bangladesh flag motif painted on it, I asked her to explain the symbolism. She told me it stood for the rising sun over the green fields, reddened with the blood of liberation martyrs. After the terrible atrocities in 1971 in which many innocent […]
Ah, why Should life all labor be? Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have […]
I have received all sorts of response from my Juma Khutba entitled Bangladesh in crisis. These responses include verbal abuse, threat of violence and death. Some have wished me eternal damnation and guaranteed me a place in Hell. Others have accused me of being paid by Jamati Islami and being a Jamat member. I have […]
We all seem to have an image. An image of what a God-fearing and religious person looks like. That image may be founded on our experience with those whom we consider to be “religious” or at times based on what we imagine a pious person to be, created upon our reading from a particular […]
In South Africa there are two million whites against almost thirteen million native people, and it has never occurred to a single black to consider himself superior to a member of the white minority.– Frantz Fanon The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have […]
THE only thing that surprised me when I heard that the Algerian kidnappers had called for the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui was that it hadn’t happened sooner. Don’t get me wrong, as a former hostage myself, there is no way I condone the actions of what has unfolded in a remote corner of the […]
Colonial Invasion & State Structures. Loss of self-confidence in Muslims is justifiably related to defeats on the battlegrounds at the hands of west. But a military defeat is not enough to enslave hearts and minds, as it can be an impetus for revenge. Today Muslims are envious of West’s power, which proves the fact that […]
I am talking of millions of men who have been skillfully injected with fear, inferiority complexes, trepidation, servility, despair, abasement. —Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le Colonialisme The independence movements in colonies and protectorates came into being, not through a return to indigenous values on the part of those concerned, but through the absorption of occidental […]
Lauren Booth, broadcaster and journalist, is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, who converted to Islam in 2010. Here below is her journey to Islam and the heart-warming reaction of her family in this translated version of a recent interview: I thank Allah for giving me the chance to spend a month with the […]
“Israel has a right to defend itself just like a burglar has, who busts open someone else’s house, not for theft but for invasion, expelling the residents out with force, with a ‘superpower’ fully supporting his actions. Even if the burglar has the most sophisticated weapons, the children of the house fighting for their right […]
