Monthly Archives: June 2008

Deoband first: A fatwa against terror

Ethics, India, Iraq War, Terrorism Issue

The Times of India, June 1, 2008

NEW DELHI: For the first time ever, Islamic seminary Darul-Uloom Deoband issued a fatwa against terrorism on Saturday, stating Islam had come to wipe out all kinds of terrorism and to spread the message of global peace. The Darul-Uloom had denounced terrorism for the first time in February, but had not issued a fatwa so far.

Saturday’s fatwa, signed by Darul-Uloom’s grand mufti Habibur Rehman, asserts that “Islam rejects all kinds of unjust violence, breach of peace, bloodshed, murder and plunder and does not allow it in any form”.

Citing the “sinister campaign” to malign “Islamic faith…by linking terrorism with Islam and distorting the meanings of Quranic Verses and Prophet traditions”, Mahmood Asad Madani, leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, had wanted Deoband to spell out the stand of Islam on world peace.

The fatwa, issued before a huge gathering of Muslims in Delhi’s Ramlila Ground for the Anti-Terrorism and Global Peace Conference, went on to say, “It is proved from clear guidelines provided in the Holy Quran that allegations of terrorism against a religion which preaches and guarantees world peace is nothing but a lie. The religion of Islam has come to wipe out all kinds of terrorism and to spread the message of global peace. Allah knows the best.” Continue reading Deoband first: A fatwa against terror →

So al-Qa’ida’s defeated, eh? Go tell it to the marines

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iraq War, Journalism and Media

Robert Fisk, The Independent, Sunday, 1 June 2008

So al-Qa’ida is “almost defeated”, is it? Major gains against al-Qa’ida. Essentially defeated. “On balance, we are doing pretty well,” the CIA’s boss, Michael Hayden, tells The Washington Post. “Near strategic defeat of al-Qa’ida in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qa’ida in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qa’ida globally – and here I’m going to use the word ‘ideologically’ – as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam.” Well, you could have fooled me.

Six thousand dead in Afghanistan, tens of thousands dead in Iraq, a suicide bombing a day in Mesopotamia, the highest level of suicides ever in the US military – the Arab press wisely ran this story head to head with Hayden’s boasts – and permanent US bases in Iraq after 31 December. And we’ve won? Continue reading So al-Qa’ida’s defeated, eh? Go tell it to the marines →

Another Arabesque: Arabs in Brazil

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Immigration Issues, Islam in America

North American to release book about Arabs in Brazil

John Tofik Karam, a grandson of Lebanese born in the United States, should release up to the end of the year, in Brazil, book ‘Another Arabesque’. The work is on the valuation of the Arab tradesman in the country in the late 20th century. To write the book, initially a master’s degree thesis, he was in Brazil for over a year.

Isaura Daniel, ANBA, Brazil-Arab News Agency, 3/26/2008

São Paulo – The North American John Tofik Karam, of Lebanese origin, is going to release in Brazil his book “Another Arabesque” through Martins Editora publishing house. The work is the result of a doctoral thesis that Karam worked on about the Arab community in Brazil and shows the valuation of the Arabs in the late 20th century.

“It shows the greater visibility that the Arabs got during the neoliberal phase,” explained Karam in a telephone interview to ANBA. According to the Lebanese descendant, up to the middle of the 20th century, Arabs were marginalized due to the stereotype of good businessman, always wanting the greatest possible gain in trade. “This idea suddenly became an advantage in the neoliberal phase,” he said. Continue reading Another Arabesque: Arabs in Brazil →

Poems from Guantánamo

Books You Should Read, Iraq War, Poetry, Terrorism Issue

Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak is a short but provocative book of poems from several of the detainees held at Guantánamo Bay. Much has been written about the legal issues and violations of human rights, but here we can hear the silenced voices of those dehumanized in detention without access to justice. Here is one of the poems:

Death Poem
by Jumah Al Dossari

Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.

Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience.
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.

And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden, before their children and before history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul.
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the “protectors of peace.”

Jumah al Dossari, a thirty-three-year-old Bahraini national, is the father of a young daughter. He has been held at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years. In addition to being detained without charge or trial, Dossari has been subjected to a range of physical and psychological abuses, some of which are detailed in Inside the Wire, an account of the Guantánamo prison by former military intelligence soldier Erik Saar. He has been held in solitary confinement since the end of 2003 and, according to the U.S. military, has tried to kill himself twelve times while in the prison. On one occasion, he was found by his lawyer, hanging by his neck nd bleeding from a gash to his arm.