The Islamic World

Several thousand British Muslims participated in ‘This is loving Islam’ festival in Lancashire which was held last month in the backdrop of the suicide bombings. While several elderly Muslims were engaged in worship, male and female youngsters formed teams and played friendship football matches. A lot of stalls selling coffee, cakes, Islamic literature and attires were set up in the exhibition grounds where participants stayed in tents. Though the preparation for the festival started much earlier than the bombings, the congregation attained importance in the wake of bombings. Festival organiser Jeffrey Pierre told BBC in an interview that British Muslims needed a sense of their distinct identity. He said the positive message of Islam was facing a challenge from the message of hate sent across by the suicide bombers. British Muslim social activist Yusufzai from Birmingham said Muslims need to realise that there were hardliners among them.


(Translated by M.A.Siraj from BBC.Urdu.com)

Circumcision could be a better protection against Aids. This has been revealed in a survey conducted by a French organization in Western African nations. The conclusion of the survey was presented by a researcher at a UN conference on health in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The survey covered 3000 males and it was found that seven out of ten males could remain protected by adopting circumcision. However, the UN agency hosting the conference said the study is yet to conclusively prove that circumcision would be completely effective protection against Aids and could be promoted as a safeguard on par with condoms. However the UN agency said introducing circumcision as a safeguard against Aids would require study of practices in various societies and evolving methods to convince people.


(Translated by M.A.Siraj from BBC.Urdu.com)

Nearly half of all marriages in Afghanistan involve girls under age 16 and in some rural areas, children as young as six are married off by their families.


“Nearly 45% of marriages in this country involve girls below the legal age of 16,” the UN Population Fund said recently. The United Nations has also said that it is common for girls to be traded to resolve conflicts between tribal families and that such children usually become the “property of the family or individual who receives them”.


The UN agency also announced it was organising a workshop next month for Islamic leaders from around Afghanistan to try to combat the problem. A new Constitution enshrines women’s rights, but the law is often ignored and President Hamid Karzai’s government has little authority in some areas, especially remote rural ones, to enforce it.

The funeral of King Fahd, which was conducted in a simple manner in Riyadh last month, has encouraged a well-known Christian priest in Italy to embrace Islam


The priest, who watched the late King’s funeral on television, was impressed by the lack of pomp and pageantry in the royal funeral, Al-Riyadh Arabic daily reported without mentioning his name. Islamic preacher, Dr. Abdullah Al-Malik said the simple funeral of the King had a dramatic effect on the priest’s mind, which led him to Islam. Muslim preachers in Italy had given the priest Islamic books and cassettes in the past 15 years, but what moved him was the simplicity of the royal funeral. “I had read several Islamic books and heard many Islamic cassettes over the past years, they never moved me. But the simple royal funeral shook me and changed my mind,” Malik quoted the priest as saying. “I will work the rest of my life for the propagation of Islam,” the 62-year-old former priest said.

Young Australian Muslims have called for the adoption of “Modernizing Muslims Six Point Plan” presented during Youth Forum recently in a bid for imams to be trained and accredited to ensure their teachings fit a modern, multi-cultural Australia.


“We do not believe there is a threat within the Islamic community of terrorism in Australia,” says Kuranda Seyit, head of the moderate youth Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations. The six points of the plan are: A licensing system for imams, a support programme for imams, to include English language teaching and lessons in Australian political and social systems; mentors for post-school youths, to develop leadership, a college to train home-grown imams ,focus groups to examine community needs, and an effective media strategy to counter negative publicity. Muslims currently make up 1.5 percent of the 20 million population and live mainly in Sydney and Melbourne.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) attacked the BBC for conducting a witch hunt against Muslims in the UK and for showing a “pro-Israeli bias” through a BBC Panorama documentary on Muslim organisations. The documentary, titled ‘A Question of Leadership’, was broadcast recently. It suggested that the MCB had failed to provide stronger leadership and that groups affiliated to it were propagating extremist hard-line views. In the aftermath of the 7/7 suicide bombings in London, the MCB like many other Muslim organisations in the UK pledged to tackle extremism “head on”. The MCB has over 400 affiliated Muslim organisations and mosques in the UK, which account for about a third of the 1.8 million Muslims in Britain.

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have launched a ground-breaking campaign using cricket to focus on girls’ right to education and sports. UNICEF representative in Pakistan, Omar Ahmed Abdi and PCB chairman Shahryar Muhammad Khan signed the agreement recently in Lahore, as part of the regional “Fair Play for Girls” initiative. The programme in Pakistan is aimed at helping young women to start playing cricket, in the context of school sports. “I believe cricket is an ennobling sport and can help bring about great change. It transcends the barriers of difference and the divisions of culture, language and race. Cricket buttresses fraternity, fair play and equality,” he said. Under the UNICEF-PCB campaign, two women’s teams will play an exhibition match on September, 14, 2005. An invited crowd of 20,000 youth and family members will watch the match.

Pakistan plans to launch a self-controlled Remote Sensing Satellite System (RSSS) at a cost of Rs19.3 billion to ensure strategic and unconditional supply of satellite remote sensing data for any part of the globe over the year. The project will be executed by the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) over a period of six years. President Gen Pervez Musharraf said Suparco will develop the capability to make and launch different types of satellites, specially, communications, remote sensing and weather satellites. On the completion of the project, high resolution satellite images will be available for national defence and security in any critical time. They will also enable universities and non-profit organisations to obtain satellite remote sensing data and carry out analysis for other application areas.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah has won a special award from Poland’s mass-circulation newspaper, Gazetta Wyborcza, for his humanitarian services. The Daily decided to present the annual award to the Saudi King in appreciation of the humanitarian assistance he extended to the Polish conjoined twins Olga and Daria Kotacz who were separated at King Abdul Aziz Medical City in Riyadh recently.

Pope Benedict XVI has used the first foreign trip of his pontificate to urge Muslim leaders to help defeat terrorism which he said aims at poisoning ties between Christians and Muslims. “I am certain that I echo your own thoughts when I bring up as one of our concerns the spread of terrorism,” he said in an address to some 20 leaders of Muslim communities across Germany. “Those who instigate and plan these attacks evidently wish to poison our relations, making use of all means, including religion,


to oppose every attempt to build a peaceful, fair and serene life together,” said the 78-year-old pontiff. In July, Pope Benedict overruled aides who had wanted him to brand the London terror attacks as “anti-Christian” and instead called them “acts against humanity” in his official condemnation.