The Muslim World

Four years from now, the Haj pilgrims are expected to travel between the holy cities by trains at a speed of 360 kms an hour.

The Al Rajhi Consortium has won the Saudi Riyal 6.79 billion contract for implementation of the Haramain Railway project linking the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. Saudi Transport Minister Jabara Al Seraisry said the Makkah-Madinah Rail Link project with high-speed trains would be an ideal solution to transportation problems faced by millions of pilgrims each year. “The conclusion of the contract is the result of the efforts by Saudi Railway Organization (SRO), the General Investment Fund and the advisers of the project over the past weeks to scrutinize tenders submitted by various eligible corporations,” Al Seraisry, who is also chairman of SRO, told the Saudi Press Agency.

Abdul Aziz Al Huqail, President of SRO, said the contract involves undertaking the civil works, the first part for laying rail lines from Makkah to Madinah passing through Jeddah city and King Abdul Aziz International Airport. The stations will be built in the second part of the first phase and will be completed in three years from the date of signing the contract, he said. Al Huqail said the Haramain express train is distinguished for its high speed at about 360 km per hour and covers the distance between Jeddah and Makkah in 30 minutes while the trip between Jeddah and Madinah will approximately take two hours.

The consortium, led by the Mada and Al-Rajhi groups, both local, saw off a joint bid of SR 8.3 billion in the final round by the consortiums led by Saudi Binladin Group and Spain’s Obrascon Huarte Lain (OHL). Al-Rajhi Consortium is expected to begin work before the end of this year on civil works and stations for the 444-km long, high speed railway. The line will link the two holy cities via Jeddah, Rabegh and King Abdullah Economic City.

The Haramain railway will provide a huge boost to Saudi Arabia’s tourism infrastructure, linking the country’s main aviation and marine gateway in Jeddah to the two holy cities. It will also alleviate traffic congestion on the roads particularly during Haj and Umrah seasons. The project is due to be completed by 2013. The winning Al Rajhi Alliance also includes China Railway Engineering Corporation and France’s Alstom Transport.

The Haramain train project has been designed in a manner to provide a safe and fast means of transportation for pilgrims and local passengers and it comes within the developmental projects being carried out by the government in the service of pilgrims, visitors, and service seekers.

Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, will host the fourth World Halal Forum (WHF) on May 18 and 19 this year. The fourth World Halal Forum with the theme of “Achieving Global Halal Integrity,” will be the biggest yet, due to the impact and importance of the Global Halal Standard, as well as the expansion of the forum’s format. WHF 2009 will be the largest forum of its kind to be held in Malaysia and in the whole of South East Asia, expecting increased participation from the Middle East because of WHF Chairman Sheikh Saleh Kamel’s significant influence in the region. WHF 2009 also anticipates large delegations from South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, as well as non-traditional countries such as Brazil and Uruguay. Russia and the CIS (Commonwealth and Independent States) countries have also shown interest in WHF and the Halal industry.

Since its inception in 2006, the World Halal Forum has grown from strength to strength, always at the forefront of a challenging industry. It has grown from 463 delegates from 27 countries in 2006, to 980 delegates from 40 countries in 2007, making it the most impo-rtant event in the Halal indu-stry calendar. The third World Halal Forum in 2008 raised the bar once again and drew together over 1,200 delegates from industries, governments, research organizations, universities and consumer associations under one roof to discuss the major issues affecting the Halal industry. At the close of the two eventful days, a resolution was arrived at, for the International Halal Integrity Alliance (IHI Alliance), to develop and present the International Halal Standard – a single standard to unify the fragmented industry and ensure global Halal integrity.

After “Radio Coran” launched several months ago, Algeria is on the point of obtaining a satellite television channel exclusively dedicated to religious broadcasting. “This project was proposed to us and, after consultation, we took the decision to concretize it soon”, the Algerian Minister for Religious affairs, Bouabdellah Ghlamallah revealed recently during a trip to Constantine. Ghlamallah who started a series of visits a few days ago all over Algeria with the objective to inform the Imams to sensitize people to take part in the poll of next April 9, defended in addition to confer a political role on the mosque.

“The mosque should not monopolize the role of the citizen and decide in his place,” the minister stressed. The Imam should advise citizens and not to choose in their place, he said. Algeria counts currently approximately 22000 Imams, that is to say nearly 36% of the requirements and needs of the country.

A House of Lords ruling that allows the deportation of terrorist suspects to Algeria and Jordan damages the global ban on torture, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. The ruling wrongly endorses the British government’s use of unreliable promises from the Algerian and Jordanian governments that, despite the well-documented evidence of torture in both countries, individuals sent from the UK would not be tortured.

The UK judgment allowed the government to deport two Algerians and a Jordanian national, Omar Othman (known as Abu Qatada), in reliance on “diplomatic assurances” against torture from the men’s home governments.

The Law Lords have given the government a green light to send people back to places where they risk torture and ill-treatment,” said Julia Hall, senior counter terrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “Given how the Law Lords have stood up for human rights in several earlier counterterrorism cases, it is extremely disappointing that they have now agreed to the discredited practice of deporting suspects based on unreliable government promises.”

Human Right Watch and Justice, the London affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, submitted a third party intervention (amicus brief) and made oral submissions in proceedings before the House of Lords. The groups argued that diplomatic assurances are ineffective in protecting people from torture and ill-treatment on return to their home countries, and that the SIAC’s review of secret evidence in closed sessions to assess risk on return violated fundamental notions of procedural fairness.

The Law Lords refused to undertake a full review of the SIAC’s ruling, and instead just ruled that SIAC did not act “irrationally” in finding that Algeria’s and Jordan’s assurances could be trusted. But Human Rights Watch’s work on the two countries, coupled with its years-long research on diplomatic assurances, including an October 2008 report titled “Not the Way Forward: The UK’s Dangerous Reliance on Diplomatic Assurances,” contradicts that finding.

If deported, the two Algerians will most likely be detained by the notorious Department for Information and Security (DRS), whose operatives have been accused of—but never held accountable for—abuses such as beatings, electric shock torture, suspending prisoners from the ceiling, and forcing them to ingest chemicals. In its May 2008 review of Algeria, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) expressed serious concern about reports of secret detention centers operated by the DRS, numerous cases of torture and ill-treatment reportedly at the hands of the DRS, and the lack of prompt and impartial investigations into allegations of such abuse.

Urdu translation of the Journalist Iftikhar Gilani’s book My Days in Prison has been adjudged the Best Translation Award for the Year 2008 by the Sahitya Akademi. The book recounts the days of Iftikhar Gilani in Tihar Prison in Delhi where he was incarcerated for seven months for no crime. Gilani, who is bureau chief of the Kashmir Times in Delhi, was arrested during the reign of National Democratic Alliance for storing some Defence data on his personal computer. It was later proved that the data was a public document and the CBI had faked a case against the journalist who also happens to be son-in-law of Hurriyet leader from Jammu and Kashmir Syed Ali Shah Gilani. After his release from the Tihar Jail and withdrawal of cases, Gilani penned the jail accounts and the book was published by the Penguins titled My Days in Prison. It was later translated by Nusrat Zaheer, editor of Adab Saaz, Delhi and became the first Urdu book to be published by Penguins titled Tihar Jail main mere shab-o-roz.

Prominent Saudi scholar, Sheikh Dr. Abdul Mohsen Al Obaikan, who is also an adviser at the Royal Court, has addressed the controversial issue of archeological sites and their preservation. Al Obaikan, commenting on demands to remove or fence off Islamic archeological sites, said there was a difference between preserving archeological sites for educational purposes and the “polytheism practised at the sites by ignorant people”. “We can’t ask for these places to be destroyed just because of the ignorance of some,” Al Obaikan continued. There were people who practised such things inside the holy Kaaba and next to the Prophet’s (Pbuh) grave.

Obaikan said that the only right way is to make people aware of the erroneous practices by appointing people at the sites to act as guides to visitors. “We can’t say no if someone wants to visit Al Bay’ah Mosque where Al Ansar swore allegiance to the Prophet (peace be upon him), or with Ghaar (cave) Hera’a and other sites. In an interview to Okaz daily, Prince Sultan bin Salman, Chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, touched upon the issue of the removal or demolition of historical sites, the importance of establishing museums to correct misconceptions about the Kingdom’s history, and various steps being taken to restructure the nation’s tourism sector.

Prince Sultan said that the Kingdom’s historical sites and antiquities are protected by a national will extended from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.

Reacting to an alarming cholera outbreak, Malawi’s young Muslims have launched a nationwide clean-up campaign to help battle the epidemic and show Islam’s precept of cleanliness, a move hailed by non-Muslims as highly-needed and proactive. “We feel that if an initiative of this kind was done a long time, we could have saved lives which have been lost due to cholera,” IslamOnline.net reported quoting Peter Mota, President of the Muslim Youth Assembly, the organizer. The campaign under the title of “Clean Environment, Everyone’s Responsibility,” which was launched last month in Blantyre, is the first of its kind in the country.

The campaign will run for a month in every part of the country. Besides the general cleaning, the youths will also sensitize people on hygiene. Mota explained that the campaign comes in reaction to the rising number of cholera deaths in Malawi, which has overstretched the delivery of health services. “The present situation in the country is very disturbing,” stressed Mota, whose group is a national umbrella body of all Muslim youth, and student associations. He affirmed that with everyone helping in cleaning up public places, the initiative would prove extremely helpful in reducing cholera cases.

Some 35 percent of Malawi’s 13 millions have no access to clean drinking water while 81.4 percent of households use pit latrines, official figures indicate. The Health Ministry announced last month that at least 52 people died in an outbreak of cholera which has affected more than 1,800 people. The death toll jumped from just 14 in January, according to the ministry. Up to 1,000 people died of cholera in Malawi in 2001. Muslim organizers say their campaign also aims at showing Islam’s emphasis on cleanliness. “Through this initiative, we would like to show that Islam is not just a religion, but a way of life,” said Mota, the Muslim Youth Assembly head. “This is a way to demonstrate our belief.”

Many non - Muslim compatriots hailed the campaign as a highly-needed gesture that would change the general outlook of the country. “We have learnt a lot from our brothers and sisters in Islam,” Dr. Lester Bandawe, Acting Chief Executive for Blantyre City Assembly, said. “We never thought they could do this,” he added.

Islam is the second largest faith in the southern African nation after Christianity. According to state figures, Muslims constitute 12 percent of the entire population, though the Muslim umbrella body puts the figure at 36 percent.

American lawmakers were shocked by the scale of Israeli destruction they saw during a rare visit to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

“The amount of physical destruction and the depth of human suffering here is staggering,” Democratic representatives Brian Baird and Keith Ellison said in a joint statement. After touring destroyed areas and meetings with UN officials, the lawmakers said the situation was “shocking and troubling beyond words.” “The personal stories of children being killed in their homes or schools, of entire families wiped out, and relief workers prevented from evacuating the wounded are heart wrenching,” Baird said. Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the US Congress, harshly criticized restrictions on the delivery of desperately-needed goods into the coastal strip that has been under a long-running crippling Israeli blockade.

“People, innocent children, women and non-combatants, are going without water, food and sanitation, while the things they so desperately need are sitting in trucks at the border, being denied permission to go in,” he said. “The stories about the children affected me the most,” added Ellison. “No parent, or anyone who cares for kids, can remain unmoved by what Brian and I saw here.” The Israeli air, sea and ground attacks killed nearly 1,400 people, half of them women and children. The 22-day onslaught destroyed nearly 20,000 homes, 48 government offices, 31 police stations and 30 mosques across the impoverished territory. US Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate’s powerful Foreign Committee and former presidential candidate, also toured Gaza. He visited the American school left in ruins by Israel’s offensive and Izzbet Abed Rabbo, a northern Gaza community ravaged by the Israeli bombing. The separate visits were the first by US lawmakers since Hamas, which Washington blacklists as a terrorist organization, seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.