"O assembly of jinns and men! If you have power to pass beyond the zones of the heavens and the earth, then pass (them)! But you will never be able to pass them, except with authority (from Allâh)!"

[ Surah Al-Rahman: Ayah 33]

For decades, man has taken it for granted that they can fly wherever and whenever they wished. The advent of mass travel, cheap air tickets and bigger and better jumbo jets have meant we felt masters of the skies. However, in the past few days the seemingly distant event of a volcano erupting in Iceland has led to the cessation of almost ALL air traffic over Europe. Despite all the advances of modern technology, truly man cannot pass beyond the bounds of Earth without the permission of Allah...

"Then which of the favours of your Lord will you deny?"

[Surah Al-Rahman: Ayah 13]

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Dr. Israr Ahmed passed away in Lahore yesterday at the age of 78. To all those who used to listen to his lectures on the message of the Quran or read his books, he needs no introduction. However, for the rest of us, it is worthwhile to look into his life story.

Born in what is now Haryana (India) Israr Ahmed graduated as a doctor in Lahore. Instead of climbing up the greasy pole trying to become just another CV-building, promotion-chasing, medicine-is-my-life Medic, Dr. Israr became involved in trying to sort out the problems of the Muslim youth. After joining a few different organisations, he finally settled into one and gradually rose up the ranks due to his obvious abilities.

He was a man of principle and one of these was that he did not believe that Muslim organisations should get involved in the political process. Although his mentor and colleagues disagreed, Dr. Israr decided it was best to resign and to focus the rest of his life working to reawaken the desire for Islam amongst the Muslim masses.

Like many scholars, you can agree and disagree with some of the things he said or did, but Dr. Israr showed by example the fruits of a life lived in service to uniting Muslims. Inna lil lahi wa inna ilayhi rajioun.

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Yesterday I got an old post at Muslim Matters, Muslims Need To Calm Down About Boycotts, tweeted to me while I was out in town, and I resolved to write a blog post about the subject because, as I responded, “Muslim boycott mania is often so irrational & oppressive to deal with & even shaikhs get sucked in”. Sister Safiya (Outlines) responded that boycotts were “often the junction where prejudice and conspiracy theories meet”, but I more often find them a source of frustration and irrationality. Most of the Muslim boycotts that have been promoted the last few years have been reactive, pointless and focussed on soft targets.

The author, SaqibSaab (Saqib Salman Shafi), related an incident in which a sister who worked at an Islamic school bought a coffee from Starbucks using a gift card she’d been given, but received a very hostile reception from her colleagues when she got back to work:

"Unaware of the issue of boycotting Starbucks, she unknowingly walked into the teachers lounge one morning with a small Mocha in hand. She was then met with an uproar from her fellow Muslim staff. Without kindly explaining anything to her, they yelled at her, told her she wasn’t allowed in the room, that her drink was killing Palestinian babies, and that she didn’t care about Muslims in Palestine.

The sister apologized repeatedly, trying to explain that she didn’t know about the boycott and that she purchased her drink using a gift card. When the angry Muslim staff refused to listen and one of them began to cry, she then threw her nearly full drink away."

A few years ago, I noticed that Starbucks shops were often full of Muslims. I have noticed that there are much fewer in those places now. One reason might have been less to do with the boycott of supposedly pro-Israel companies as to do with a boycott of American companies during the Afghan and Iraq wars. However, it is widely perceived as a “Zionist” company and rumours have spread, for example, that a whole week’s revenue had been donated to the Israeli government, something that would not be tolerated by a public company’s shareholders (often pension funds and the like). The activities of the company are often confused with the private activities of its chief executive, who actually takes a tiny fraction of the group’s revenue (even if it’s a substantial salary).

Similar rumours used to go round regarding Marks & Spencer, alleging among other things that they donated some proportion of their Saturday takings to Israel (or even the Israeli army, in one version) as some kind of expiation for trading on the Sabbath. Given that Saturday is the biggest day for any high street retailer, it would mean a very large chunk of their revenue being given away to a cause which would bring a lot of bad PR, and not just among Muslims. That would not sit easily among the shareholders either, yet it turns up in the Jewish Chronicle as if that was some secret document that only Jews read.

At least the pro-Palestinian boycotts are aimed at a genuine target, an oppressive occupation of Muslim lands and people — although far from the only one, and quite possibly not the most oppressive such occupation. This cannot be said of the boycott against Danish goods which followed the cartoon affair, which was aimed to hit an entire country, particularly a food company with operations in several European countries, over cartoons printed in one privately-owned newspaper. Most of us would not want to be associated with junk printed in a trashy, bigoted mass-market newspaper — we can name a few in the UK — so why tar all Danish people with the same brush as that paper?

Furthermore, this particular food company produces (or at least produced) halaal food for export to the Gulf, but when the hysteria erupted over the cartoons, supermarkets in the Gulf stopped stocking Danish goods. If such things keep happening, of course, eventually companies will stop producing food for that market, because any small happening which has nothing to do with them could lead to their markets collapsing. The upshot is that we stop getting the halaal food, not only in the Gulf but also in England and elsewhere. The boycotts will hit ordinary workers first, causing job losses which could easily lead to agitation against Muslims living in the country being boycotted, and won’t hit those responsible for the offence. However, people simply will look at you with contempt or suspicion. or both, if you try telling them that they cannot do anything about the situation or that the offence caused does not merit the action. (It’s also noticeable that the usual targets are small countries; there was no boycott of French couscous over the ban on hijab and no boycott of Chinese electronics and clothing when they cracked down on the Uighurs a year or so ago; personal sacrifice is not the name of the game here.)

The problem is that a lot of Muslims will be suspicious of you if you don’t agree with what they “know” about some event or another: there was a time when you were suspect if you didn’t believe the most ludicrous conspiracy theory about 9/11, for example. Some Muslims believe as fact the ideas put forward by Holocaust deniers. In both cases, all those involved say what they say because they have an axe to grind, not because they have any grounding for what they say; in some cases, they do not actually believe it themselves. They say Hitler did not really kill 6 million Jews, Gypsies etc. because they are fascists and racists and want to “rehabilitate” Hitler. Similarly, 9/11 revisionists are often motivated by hatred for government for its own sake, or have a tendency to see conspiracies behind everything (and they often make their money proposing them), and Muslims, particularly when under pressure to answer for acts of terrorism they had nothing to do with, often instinctively resist believing that it was Muslims who did it. However, to retreat into denialism against the facts isn’t a good way to fight this kind of bigotry, and these boycotts are rarely an effective way of fighting oppression either.

By Indigo Jo  

Originally posted at http://www.blogistan.co.uk/blog

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Recently, there has been outraged expressed by Muslims about the discovery that British Army firing ranges had replicas of Mosques being used for target practice. This is obviously not a good PR move and one thinks that Max Clifford will be getting a ring very shortly. Still, it does beg the question - why so worked up over fake Mosques being in the firing range when real Mosques are in the firing range every day of the week? Hmmmm....

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A useful reminder with translation by the brothers at Awakening Visions.

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A Message to Muslim Students in light of personal data disclosure by UCL Union 

Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu,

My dear respected brothers and sisters I pray this message reaches you in the best of health and Iman. 

As some of you may be aware, The Independent Newspaper ran a front page story on Thursday 1^st April 2010 entitled “CIA Given Details of British Muslim Students”, a copy of which can be found online.  This relates to an incident where UCL Union were approached by the Metropolitan Police requesting the personal data of the UCL Islamic Society’s membership in the aftermath of the alleged attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253 involving Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a former UCL Islamic Society President.  The Union responded by providing the details of not only the UCL’s Islamic Society but also that of RUMS Islamic Society (Medical Islamic Society) and provided details for academic year 2008-2009, a period which was after Umar Farouk had graduated from UCL.

Following revelations that UCL Union had passed on the personal data of Muslim students, FOSIS and UCL Islamic Society were naturally very concerned and sought to raise questions as to exactly what data had been requested and provided, how the data was obtained, how it would be handled, who would have access to it and for how long.  We were informed that the:

• Police issued a personal data request form requesting the membership details of the UCL Islamic Society Isoc from 2005-2008 only, the period in which Umar Farouk was a student at UCL.  
• UCL Union provided the data that they had available to them, names and email addresses, but referred the Police on to the Student Records Department within the university which provided more details.
• Data would be passed onto other international intelligence agencies if requested.
• Data would be held for a period of at least 7 years following the completion of the investigation.
• Individuals affected would have to contact the police and request any personal data held about them to be removed after this period.

We are deeply dismayed by the actions of the Union and have sought clarification as to why this data of such students- who are not linked to any crimes- was provided in the absence of any legally-binding documentation.  We believe that student unions have a duty of care and responsibility to protect the rights of their membership and should only respond to personal data requests when it is legally obliged to do so.  Not only is this a possible breach of Data Protection, but it also reinforces the notion that the Muslim community is a suspect community. 

What has been done about this?   

Whilst we are unhappy with the decision by UCL Union to provide the data, our priority in this regard is to safeguard the rights and privacy of Muslim students across the UK and Ireland.  Actions have included:

• FOSIS providing support and assistance to both of UCL’s Islamic Societies and has been looking to liaise and remain in contact with the Union on this issue.
• UCL Islamic Society have passed a motion preventing the Union from issuing personal data in the future and demanding a public apology in light of the incident.
• FOSIS to issue guidance documentation over the coming weeks to Islamic societies, student unions and universities across the UK in relation to data protection.
• FOSIS requesting the Union to clarify it’s legal position in light of this event and to determine whether there has been a possible breach, particularly with respect to providing surplus and unnecessary data to the Police.
• FOSIS to continue publicising the issue to ensure other student unions and universities act responsibly with the data of it’s membership.
• FOSIS to continue to encourage Muslim students to get involved and engage with their students’ unions to ensure that their needs and concerns are addressed.
• FOSIS to organise a series of “Know Your Rights” workshops at universities up and down the country with renowned civil liberties organisations.
• FOSIS currently seeking legal advice on the matter.

What do we recommend you to do? 

1. If you know or suspect that your Islamic Society’s membership details are being provided to the security services without your consent, please contact us at: vp.studentaffairs@fosis.org.uk or civil.liberties@fosis.org.uk

1. Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you are entitled to issue your university and your students union with a ‘Data Subject Notice’ to prevent them from disclosing your personal details without your prior consent. This must be done via sending a letter to your university and a letter to your students union. FOSIS strongly recommends you do this as a first course of action- an example letter can be found at the end of this document.

1. To read through our guidance toolkit once it is issued to help prevent this from ever happening again. 

Your Islamic Society should have already received two “toolkits” from FOSIS earlier in January.  These provide necessary steps to ensuring your Islamic Society work stays on the front foot, is not affected by recent events and continues to go from strength to strength. If your Islamic Society has not received these toolkits yet, please contact vp.islamicsocieties@fosis.org.uk or vp.studentaffairs@fosis.org.uk

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For an Ummah founded upon the principle of Tawheed (i.e. Oneness of Allah) - Muslims sure do love erecting statues. Here's just a small sample:

Salahuddin Statue - dishonouring a noble Muslim leader

Saad Zaghloul (former Egyptian Leader) huge statue in Cairo

One of thousands of Mustafa Kemal statues littered across Turkey

Turkmenbashi (former President of Turkmenistan) Golden statue

Habib Borguiba (former President of Tunisia) in casual pose statue

Hafez Assad (former Syrian President) statue in Damascus

Statues of Jinnah, Allama Iqbal & Sir Syed in Islamabad

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Words can hardly do justice can it? In the predominantly Muslim nation of Senegal, their President unveiled one of the largest statues in the world.

NOT ONLY is this absolute monstrosity just an Africanized version of various Soviet era statues littering Eastern Europe,

NOT ONLY does it contain nothing of traditional Islamic or Senegalese influences,

NOT ONLY did it cost over $20 Million to build in a nation where 60% of the population are starving,

NOT ONLY is it indecent even by Western and traditional African standards let alone Islamic standards

NOT ONLY did the President of Senegal give away a part of his country to North Korea in exchange for building it

BUT it is also a shocking act of idolatory in a predominantly Muslim country and a potent symbol of why Allah continues to send afflictions and trials on this Ummah. This is yet another example of why we need to focus on making Muslims into REAL Muslims again and to reunite upon Islam rather than hoping for shortcuts through politics, coups or other means where the essential ingredients of practising Muslims is missing.

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Click on the image below to go to the latest issue of ISocNews

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