Notes & Nuggets

Forget about fiction bestsellers or celebrity memoirs, the best selling book at the Patna book fair was the Quran with more than 500 copies being bought - mostly by non-Muslims. The high demand among non-Muslim readers for the holy book of Islam has surprised salespersons at the fair, which was held in December 2006. “I sold nearly 500 copies of the Quran. A large number of people have been enquiring for the book, but my stock is exhausted,” said Mushtak Umri, sales manager of New Delhi-based, Goodword Book. Umri said he had never come across such a tremendous response to buy the Quran. He sold around 250 copies of the Hindi translation of the Quran and over 100 copies of the English version. “Over 75 per cent buyers were non-Muslims,” Umri added. He sold less than 25 copies of the Arabic and Urdu translation of the Quran. According to Umri, he had sold nearly 250 copies of the English translation of the Quran at a book fair in Mizoram last year. “That was also a record as Mizoram has a large Christian population,” he said. A salesperson of Maktabe-e-Imarat Sharia said many Hindus purchased the Hindi translation of the holy book. “They told me that they want to read and know Islam from its original text and sources.” Manish Sinha, who was one of those who bought a copy of the Quran, agreed, “We wanted to know more about Islam.” “We came to know about the demand of books on Islam among non-Muslims, it is a good sign,” said Ratneshwar, the Fair’s main organiser.


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Muslim scholars have joined a government campaign in Uttar Pradesh to fight polio, a crippling disease on the rise particularly among Muslim children. “Large-scale participation of Muslim scholars is a boost to our eradication drive,” said V.S. Nigam, a senior health official. The All India Ulema Council decided to take part in the polio eradication campaign, volunteering to join vaccination teams and visit localities and villages to raise the parents’ awareness about the benefits of the polio drops.


In one of the biggest outbreaks of the virus in recent years, India has reported 583 polio cases in 2006. Some 481 cases were reported in Uttar Pradesh alone. The polio campaign will mainly focus on Uttar Pradesh’s Muslim neighbourhoods, where many residents have routinely stayed away from immunization programs. “It is disheartening to see Muslim parents saying no to polio vaccine,” said Khalid Rashid, chairman of the Ulema Council.


Muslim residents refuse to receive health workers who visit them to vaccinate their children, believing the program was a form of sterilization plot to make their community infertile.

Muslims of Rajasthan have accused the State police and administration for harassing the community. They said that under the pressure of the Sangh Parivar, the state government is implicating Muslims in false cases, displaying bias against them and discriminating against them in all walks of life. The Rajasthan Muslim Forum, an umbrella organisation of Muslim bodies, in a press release alleged that an “open licence’’ given to the police to target Muslims, formed part of a ploy by the BJP-led government to communalise the State’s atmosphere before the 2008 Assembly elections.


“The BJP wants to create conditions on the Gujarat pattern favourable for generating hatred against Muslims that would give political mileage to it. This dangerous strategy can replicate in Rajasthan, the mayhem and violence witnessed on an unprecedented scale in Gujarat,’’ said Mohammed Salim, State president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind.

Ind-ia’s first Zakat bank will be established in Bhopal by the city’s Masajid Committee. The main motive behind establishing this Zakat bank is the welfare of poor Muslims. This bank would neither give nor take loan from anybody and will function in line with the zakat bank established in Saudi Arabia. Masajid Committee Bhopal, claims that the bank would be unique in India. Millions of rupees were paid all over the country in the form of zakat, but the condition of the Muslims was pathetic.


There is need for better mechanism, so that widows or orphans could really be helped. A committee of ulemas of Bhopal would also be formed in order to ensure transparency. The Masajid Committee has set a target of Rs five lakhs to start operations.

Islamic scholars have urged Muslim writers to come forward to safeguard the society. They believe that due to western culture and globalisation, Muslim youth are forgetting their culture, which is also affecting Muslim women. These were the views expressed by scholars during a day long seminar organised at Tajul Masajid at Bhopal recently, on the “Role of Islamic Literature in Character Building and Duties of Muslim Writers in the 21st Century”, organised by the Council for Islamic Literature.


While presiding over the programme, Maulana Mohammed Saeed Miyan Mujadidi said that the affect of western culture among Muslim youth was easily visible. “They are becoming more fashion conscience and accepting western style as their own,” he said. He asked Muslim writers to guide youth through their writings under the light of the Quran. This would save the community from further downfall, he added.


Echoing similar sentiments, Qazi Mushtaq Ali said that the youth are not interested in reading literature and Islamic texts, which is necessary for character building. “It is the work of writers to bring the community youth back to track by stressing on Islamic values in their writing,” he added.


Maulana Subhan said that there is a misconception that Muslim women are draped in burqa or kept confined to their home. He said that it is the responsibility of women to teach Islamic values to their children. “This could only be done when a woman looks after her home. This does not mean that she is not allowed to move outside her home,.” he said. The seminar was also attended by head of the Barkatullah University Arabic department, Dr Assan. Dr Arif Juned, Prof. Abdul Matin and Dr Hamidullah also were part of the seminar.


(Email: shuriahn@yahoo.com)

There are 28,000 Wakf institutions which are registered with the Karnataka State Board of Wakfs, Bangalore. These institutions include mosques, dargahs, burial grounds, idgahs, orphanages etc. Such institutions own landed properties in cities, towns and rural areas. The properties comprise of developed lands with buildings and structures and also vacant land. Many of these properties are highly valuable. The property documents of such valuable properties are in the form of title deed, wakf deed, survey report etc. Since these properties were endowed decades ago, such documents have become very old and brittle. Physical retrieval of the documents for reference and for use in litigations exposes them to the risk of mutilation or loss. They are also likely to be damaged by pests and could also be lost due to ageing. So the Karnataka Wakf Board has embarked upon the ambitious project of digitization of such Wakf documents and preserve them in the form of CDs. According to a press release, the Board has completed the digitization of the property documents of all Wakf institutions in Bangalore Urban district. Over 1035 documents have been digitized and incorporated in the CDs. The work relating to digitization of nearly 2500 property documents of Bangalore Rural district is also under way. The Board hopes to complete the process of digitization of the entire survey records of the Wakf in the State by 2007. The Karnataka Wakf Board is the first Board in the country to take up the digitization project.

Kashmiris eat a meat dish called Harisa in Srinagar in December. They eat dishes like Harisa, which is made with lamb, as they believe it will keep them warm during the harsh winters. You can give them the yummiest of beef steaks under their nose, but the people of Srinagar city wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.


For centuries, this predominantly Muslim city, where people are voracious meat eaters, has maintained a unique tradition of saying no to beef. Although beef is widely consumed by Muslims the world over and is even part of the staple diet of rural Kashmiris, it has never found a place on the menu of this 1.3 million-strong city. “Beef was never consumed in Kashmir, not even during the Sultanate period (14th century onwards),” said Kashmir’s noted historian, Fida Mohammad Hasnain. Today the situation is different in rural Kashmir, where people prefer beef to mutton. But Srinagar city remains the same.


A recent survey by Srinagar Municipal Corporation has revealed that around 95 per cent people here do not consume beef. “Just five to seven people, that too belonging to the lower strata of society, consume it. They take it because it is cheap,” said health officer Shafqat Hussain. Before militancy started in Jammu and Kashmir, there was not even a single shop selling beef in Srinagar city. Selling the meat of bovine animals, including ox, bull, cow and calf, is a cognizable offence in the state.

A first of its kind “Workshop” for Qazis was conducted in Bangalore in December 2006, under the leadership and guidance of Ameer-i-Shariat Mufti Ashraf Ali. Qazis from across India partici-pated in the Workshop where many important issues related to Muslims, especially problems of Talaq, family matters and inheritance were discussed in interactive sessions. The Qazis presented different cases, and valuable tips were given by eminent scholars on how to handle each case, and the counseling techniques were also discussed.