THE MUSLIM NEWSVOL 3 NO. 2 Email: drhkoya@hotmail.com. PH 510-677-4488

Muslim Leader Presents Quran to Maori King

Islam Shines In Russian Culture: Putin

Unforgettable scenes as Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad given traditional Maori welcome

At the meeting, Putin urged the Russian Muslim organization to cooperate with the government to counter the ‘politicization of Islam’.

Worldwide Leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Commu-nity, presenting Holy Quran to the Maori King

Posted by Zubair Khan

On 29 October 2013, the World Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (Jamaat) and Fifth Khalifa, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad was welcomed by King Tuheitia at the Turangawaewae Marae in New Zealand and giv-en a traditional welcome by the Maori community.

Upon arrival at 10.30am, three members of the Maori communi-ty welcomed Hazrat Mirza Mas-roor Ahmad with a traditional Maori warrior exhibition.

The Maoris began the exhibition at a far distance from His Holiness

but advanced step by step whilst roaring in their native tongue, whilst female members of the Maori community chanted from the side. As His Holiness proceed-ed through the Marae, dozens of Maori children and elders also partook in the welcome by chant-ing in the Maori language.

During the formal session, a num-ber of Maori elders welcomed Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad with short speeches. The elders recognised His Holiness as “an in-spirational and strong leader who advocates for peace.”

The highlight of the event was

when Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad presented King Tuheitia with a copy of the Holy Quran, recently translated into the Maori language by Mr Shaqeel Ahmad Munir.

During the presentation ceremo-ny, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad addressed the tribal elders and thanked them for their traditional welcome.

Speaking about the Quran, Haz-rat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

The Quran teaches people how to live together in peace and cer-tainly today we need love, peace and reconciliation to spread far

and wide – that is the message of the Quran.

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad concluded his address by ex-pressing his hope that the mutual friendship developed between the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat and the Maori Community would last forever.

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Source: OnIslam

BASHKORTOSTAN – Appeal-ing to the Muslim minority, Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin has praised Muslims as ‘vital’ com-ponent in the country’s diverse and rich society during his visit to Muslim majority Bashkortostan..

“Our fathers and grandfathers nev-er discriminated against each other on the basis of ethnicity or faith,” Putin told Muslim clerics meeting in Ufa on Tuesday, October 22, The Voice Of Russia reported.

“They valued mutual respect, sup-ported each other in joy and sorrow, and have left us a legacy of great, in-vincible friendship that we will allow no one to destroy or blacken.”

Putin was speaking during his meeting with Muslim muftis at an event on Tuesday marking the 225th anniversary of Russia’s Cen-tral Muslim Spiritual Administra-tion, the governing body of the country’s large Muslim community.

Citing the significant role of Mus-lim statesmen, artists, scientists, soldiers and businessmen in the Russian history, Putin stressed that Islam was a ‘shiny’ code of Russian culture.

He has also praised the Muslim community’s role to boost Russia’s interfaith relations.

Bracing to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and the Winter Olympics in February and the soc-cer World Cup finals in 2018, Rus-sia has been disturbed by the recent attacks, which drew concerns over safe and successful games.

Bashkortostan, a Muslim autono-mous republic, extends on both sides of the Ural Mountains, on the place where Europe meets Asia.

Bashkortostan is Russia’s forth nation in terms of population, with strong national identity and very tragic his-tory of fighting for freedom.

Bashkirs are half-nomadic Turkic Sunni Muslim people living in to-day’s Russia Federation with strong urge towards independence.

Easing Tensions

At the meeting, Putin urged the Russian Muslim organization to cooperate with the government to counter the ‘politicization of Islam’.

“A politicization of religion – not always positive – is going on among various tracks in Russia, including Islam,” he said.

“The government and the Russian Muslim community are facing new problems and tasks in this setting, which can only be resolved jointly.”

Putin comments were delivered two

days after a suicide bombing on a bus by a Muslim female in Volgograd.

Six people were killed and score were injured in the attack which happened about 1000 Km away from Ufa.

Last week, hundreds were arrest-ed during police crackdown on an anti-immigrant riots in Moscow.

Accusing foreign ‘foes’ attempts to weaken the Asian country, Pu-tin argued that Russia rivals are using the radical trend of Islam to maintain conflict.

“Some political forces are making use of Islam – to be more exact, its radical trends, which, by the way are untypical of the Russian Muslim community – in order to weaken the state, to create con-flicts, governed from outside, to split ethnic groups within the Muslim community and to incite separatism in the regions,

Despite a variety of schools and trends in Islam, Russia’s Mus-lims “have always been united in their service to the public and the state,” The Russian President said.

Islamic school

Seeking a wider sovereignty on the Russian religious education, Putin suggested restoring Rus-sia’s Islamic theologian schools to guarantee ‘moderate’ Islamic education.

“If the present-day challenges are to be tackled effectively, the high authority of Russia’s Muslim cler-gy and of the Islamic theologian school should be maintained,” Putin said.

“Among the most important tasks is that of recreating the national Islamic theologian school that would guarantee the sovereignty of the Russian religious space.”

The Russian president also re-ferred to the repeated attempts to fuel the ongoing tension among the western powers and the Mus-lim world, underlying that Russia had never helped in creating that tension.

“Today tension between Western powers and the Muslim world is growing. Some politicians try to take advantage of it adding fuel to the fire. We’re not interested in it,” he said.

He also referred to the growing Russian pres-ence in the Mid-dle East, and the Muslim world, adding that Rus-sia had been seeking solidar-ity in the Islamic countries.

“We should act more actively

unmasking harmful for mankind projects which aim at manipulating countries and peoples, information and public opinion,” Putin stressed.

Islam is Russia’s second-largest religion representing roughly 15 percent of its 145 million predomi-nantly Orthodox population.

The Russian Federation is home to some 23 million Muslims in the north of the Caucasus and southern republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

Last June, Moscow police have detained more than 300 wor-shippers after rounding them up during prayer at a Muslim prayer room in the Russian capital.

Reference

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NOVEMBER-20132 Muslim News

A word of advice to the Fiji Muslim communities in USA

Freelance Writers NeededThe Muslim News

Welcomes Freelance Writers.Email Your Article And Photos With Your Contact And Email

drhkoya@hotmail.com

By H. Koya

(PhD Islamic Metaphics)

While it is my foremost duty to help our brothers and sisters of Fiji American Muslims in pro-moting their good work, I have a far greater responsibility to draw the different shades of distinc-tions that exist within them.

For an outsider it might seem like Sunni, Shiah or Ahmadis are the only devides but the truth of the matter is there are more serious di-visions within the Sunnatul Jmaat of Fiji than what meets the eye.

The Milaadis, Non-Milaadis, Tab-lighis and the Malayalam Mus-limsof Fiji

The Milaadis, Non-Milaadis, Tablighis and the Malayalam Muslims of Fiji

It is one thing to be at variance with an Islamic group – such as the Ahnadiyya Muslims – but it is a socking matter to be at odds from within.

At the outset the mainstream Fiji Muslims boast of being part and parcel of Sunnatul Jmaat but within them they are devided first as India Muslims and Malayalam Muslims the latter being severely comitted to their Arabic milaad and former for affinity with Urdu and then dvided as milaadis and nonmilaadis.

For decades it was either Indian Muslims – a term used for Urdu oriented Muslims – and Malay-alam Muslims with very minimal social interactions and marraiges being confined within those lim-its. Then nonmilaadi phenom-anon came in and devided the Inidian Muslims into two camps.

Tablighis (the Wahhabis) under the patronage of Saudi Arabia was a late comer in the late 1960s that raised a lot of eyebrows of their home-visiting Tabligh programs.

It took some time for them to es-tablish their footings gaining sup-port of the nonmilaadis.

With the massive migration of Fiji Muslims abroad and particularly to USA, the inherent divisions followed them.

Privatized and marginalized practice of Islam

Despite the fact that Islam being for all people of all times, I have not seen any credible evidence in any of the Fiji Muslim communities invit-ing others – especially Americans to Islam. Islam is confined within the four walls of their homes.

It is good to reap the worldly ben-efits of the American systems, the social security, unemployment benefits, the Medicare and medi-cal but to rise to the level stipulat-ed in the Holy Quran when God commands Muslims to “ invite them with Hiqma (wisdom) “, is not their cup of tea.

In contrast Ahmad Muslims are extremely conscious of this high call and commandment of God. In addition to inviting people of other faiths to their events, Eid and Atari dinners at their mosques, they host hundreds of guests at their annual events all-expense paid. Most guests are accommodated at local hotels or university boarding rooms

The result of the conservative and privatized Islam is that does not reach out and Islam is kept from spreading and prevailing.

Not an easy task

It is not easy to spread Islam. It requires a planned and aggres-sive effort suited to address the needs of the American public. It requires a socio-psychological analysis to transform their needs into personal development goals of Americans caught in many unfortunates life situation and

to provide the comfort of easy, safe and secured living under the shade of Islam.

Clear understanding a pre-req-uisite

My interaction with the Fiji Mus-lim communities have been both at personal level and at the leader-ship level and I am baffled to say that there is very low percentage that has a clear understanding of Islam and its history. Many so called leaders are stuck in the old school of thought. They have not read outside their domestic litera-ture or tails retold at family and private gatherings.

Karen Armstrong and other writers

It requires no elaborate evidence to understand that not even 1% has read Karen’s beautiful I can-not see how being in US how Fiji Muslims can talk to Americans without reading her book MU-HAMMED A PROPHET FOR OUR TIME

The Man Who Inspired the World’s Fastest-Growing Religion

Muhammad presents a fascinating portrait of the founder of a religion that continues to change the course of world history. Muhammad’s story is more relevant than ever because it offers crucial insight into the true origins of an increasingly radicalized Islam. Countering those who dismiss Islam

as fanatical and violent, Arm-strong offers a clear, accessible, and balanced portrait of the cen-tral figure of one of the world’s great religions.

I personally met Karen at a book signing event downtown San Francisco and conveyed her the gratitude of the AHMADIYYA MUSLIM COMMUNITY OF SFO BAY AREA and presented her certificate of appreciation

which she gracefully accepted.

Fiji Muslims are pitted against the knowledge of Bible the main-stay of American Christians and their lifestyle. Let alone reading the Bible – which Quran affirms as a Book to be reckoned and has ordained Muslims to respect the Jews and Christians as “people of the book- the Fiji Muslims are poorly read in the Quran. Very few are well read in Biblical and Quranic studies and the theolo-gies.

Recitals, Milaad and Ratib per-sonal and private affair

Abiding by the five pillars of is compulsory and it is very person-al and individual. Recital of Mi-laad and Ratib are not mandatory acts in Islam they are not even optional. The Holy Quran does not make it obligatory; therefore, it does not constitute a sin or a violation.

They want to understand the ba-sics of Islam

When you go out in the open market to distribute Islamic lit-erature to the Americans, you will find majority of them want to know the very basics of Islam. No one asks you about the Milaad or Ratib or Khatamun Nabiyeen. The Fiji Muslims severely lack in this experience.

Aloofness with ICNA and ISNA

There are at least three distinct decision-making bodies in the mainstream Muslims in USA, the ICNA, ISNA and FIQAH COUNCIL. Having served on a local body NCIC, I know that Fiji Muslims are not part these major organizations.

The Fiji Muslim communities choose operate in isolation and aloofness with the mainstream limiting them from lots of ben-efits which is very to note.

Hajji Mohammed Iqbal Khan of Gading mosque

From the little we have, we know that Hajji Mohammed Iqbal Khan of Gading Mosque in Hayward stands out when it comes to ex-plaining the message of Islam. He is articulate, concise and convinc-ing. Other Muslim leaders lack in the depth of knowledge of Islam and spontaneity of presentation that come to us by extensive read-ing and experience.

For Professional

Video &

PhotographyCall

Faizal Ali 510-943-8425

NOVEMBER-2013 3Muslim News

The Great Islamophobic CrusadeBy: Max Blumenthal

Nine years after 9/11, hysteria about Muslims in American life has gripped the country. With it has gone an outburst of arson at-tacks on mosques, campaigns to stop their construction, and the branding of the Muslim-Ameri-can community, overwhelmingly moderate, as a hotbed of poten-tial terrorist recruits. The frenzy has raged from rural Tennessee to New York City, while in Okla-homa, voters even overwhelm-ingly approved a ballot measure banning the implementation of Sharia law in American courts (not that such a prospect existed). This campaign of Islamophobia wounded President Obama po-litically, as one out of five Ameri-cans have bought into a sustained chorus of false rumors about his secret Muslim faith. And it may have tainted views of Muslims in general; an August 2010 Pew Re-search Center poll revealed that, among Americans, the favorabil-ity rating of Muslims had dropped by 11 points since 2005.

Erupting so many years after the September 11th trauma, this spasm of anti-Muslim bigotry might seem oddly timed and unexpectedly spontaneous. But think again: it’s the fruit of an or-ganized, long-term campaign by a tight confederation of right-wing activists and operatives who first focused on Islamophobia soon after the September 11th attacks, but only attained critical mass during the Obama era. It was then that embittered conservative forc-es, voted out of power in 2008, sought with remarkable success to leverage cultural resentment into political and partisan gain.

This network is obsessively fix-ated on the supposed spread of Muslim influence in America. Its apparatus spans continents, ex-tending from Tea Party activists here to the European far right. It brings together in common cause right-wing ultra-Zionists, Chris-tian evangelicals, and racist Brit-ish soccer hooligans. It reflects an aggressively pro-Israel sensibility, with its key figures venerating the Jewish state as a Middle Eastern Fort Apache on the front lines of the Global War on Terror and urging the U.S. and various Euro-pean powers to emulate its heavy-handed methods.

Little of recent American Islamo-phobia (with a strong emphasis on the “phobia”) is sheer hap-penstance. Years before Tea Party shock troops massed for angry protests outside the proposed site

of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, representa-tives of the Israel lobby and the Jewish-American establishment launched a campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism that would prove a seedbed for eve-rything to come. That campaign quickly — and perhaps predict-ably — morphed into a series of crusades against mosques and Islamic schools which, in turn, attracted an assortment of shady but exceptionally energetic mili-tants into the network’s ranks.

Besides providing the initial ener-gy for the Islamophobic crusade, conservative elements from with-in the pro-Israel lobby bankrolled the network’s apparatus, enabling it to influence the national debate. One philanthropist in particular has provided the beneficence to propel the campaign ahead. He is a little-known Los Angeles-area software security entrepreneur named Aubrey Chernick, who op-erates out of a security consulting firm blandly named the National Center for Crisis and Continuity Coordination. A former trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has served as a think tank for the American Israeli Public Affairs Commit-tee (AIPAC), a frontline lobbying group for Israel, Chernick is said to be worth $750 million.

Chernick’s fortune is puny com-pared to that of the billionaire Koch Brothers, extraction indus-try titans who fund Tea Party-related groups like Americans for Prosperity, and it is dwarfed by the financial empire of Haim Sa-ban, the Israeli-American media baron who is one of the largest private donors to the Democratic party and recently matched $9 million raised for the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces in a sin-gle night. However, by injecting his money into a small but influ-ential constellation of groups and individuals with a narrow agenda, Chernick has had a considerable impact.

Through the Fairbrook Founda-tion, a private entity he and his wife Joyce control, Chernick has provided funding to groups rang-ing from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and CAMERA, a right-wing, pro-Israel, media-watchdog outfit, to violent Israeli settlers living on Palestinian lands and figures like the pseudo-ac-ademic author Robert Spencer, who is largely responsible for popularizing conspiracy theo-ries about the coming conquest of the West by Muslim fanatics seeking to establish a worldwide

caliphate. Together, these groups spread hysteria about Muslims into Middle American communi-ties where immigrants from the Middle East have recently set-tled, and they watched with glee as likely Republican presidential frontrunners from Mike Hucka-bee to Sarah Palin promoted their cause and parroted their tropes. Perhaps the only thing more surprising than the increasingly widespread appeal of Islamopho-bia is that, just a few years ago, the phenomenon was confined to a few college campuses and an in-ner city neighborhood, and that it seemed like a fleeting fad that would soon pass from the Ameri-can political landscape.

Birth of a Network

The Islamophobic crusade was launched in earnest at the peak of George W. Bush’s prestige when the neoconservatives and their allies were riding high. In 2003, three years after the collapse of President Bill Clinton’s attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian is-sue and in the immediate wake of the invasion of Iraq, a network of Jewish groups, ranging from ADL and the American Jewish Com-mittee to AIPAC, gathered to ad-dress what they saw as a sudden rise in pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses nationwide. That meeting gave birth to the David Project, a campus advocacy group led by Charles Jacobs, who had co-founded CAMERA, one of the many outfits bankrolled by Chernick. With the help of pub-lic relations professionals, Jacobs conceived a plan to “take back the campus by influencing public opinion through lectures, the In-ternet, and coalitions,” as a memo produced at the time by the con-sulting firm McKinsey and Com-pany stated.

In 2004, after conferring with Martin Kramer, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the pro-Israel think tank where Chernick had served as a trustee, Jacobs produced a documentary film that he called Columbia Unbecoming. It was filled with claims from Jewish students at Columbia University claiming they had endured in-timidation and insults from Arab professors. The film portrayed that New York City school’s De-partment of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures as a hothouse of anti-Semitism.

In their complaints, the students focused on one figure in particu-lar: Joseph Massad, a Palestinian professor of Middle East studies.

He was known for his passion-ate advocacy of the formation of a binational state between Is-rael and Palestine, as well as for his strident criticism of what he termed “the racist character of Israel.” The film identified him as “one of the most dangerous in-tellectuals on campus,” while he was featured as a crucial villain in The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, a book by the (Chernick-funded) neoconservative activist David Horowitz. As Massad was seek-ing tenure at the time, he was es-pecially vulnerable to this sort of wholesale assault.

When the controversy over Mas-sad’s views intensified, Congress-man Anthony Weiner, a liberal New York Democrat who once described himself as a representa-tive of “the ZOA [Zionist Organi-zation of America] wing of the Democratic Party,” demanded that Columbia President Lee Bol-linger, a renowned First Amend-ment scholar, fire the professor. Bollinger responded by issuing uncharacteristically defensive statements about the “limited” nature of academic freedom.

In the end, however, none of the charges stuck. Indeed, the testi-monies in the David Project film were eventually either discredited or never corroborated. In 2009, Massad earned tenure afterwin-ning Columbia’s prestigious Li-onel Trilling Award for excellence in scholarship.

Having demonstrated its abil-ity to intimidate faculty members and even powerful university ad-ministrators, however, Kramer claimed a moral victory in the name of his project, boasting to the press that “this is a turning point.” While the David Project subsequently fostered chapters on campuses nationwide, its director set out on a different path — ini-tially, into the streets of Boston in 2004 to oppose the construction of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center.

For nearly 15 years, the Islamic Society of Boston had sought to build the center in the heart of Roxbury, the city’s largest black neighborhood, to serve its siz-able Muslim population. With en-dorsements from Mayor Thomas Menino and leading Massachu-setts lawmakers, the mosque’s construction seemed like a fait ac-compli — until, that is, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Boston Herald and his local Fox News affiliate snapped into action. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby also chimed

in with a series of reportsclaiming the center’s plans were evidence of a Saudi Arabian plot to bolster the influence of radical Islam in the United States, and possibly even to train underground terror cells.

It was at this point that the David Project entered the fray, conven-ing elements of the local pro-Israel community in the Boston area to seek strategies to torpedo the pro-ject. According toemails obtained by the Islamic Society’s lawyers in a lawsuit against the David Project, the organizers settled on a campaign of years of nuisance lawsuits, along with accusations that the center had received for-eign funding from “the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia or… the Moslem Brotherhood.”

In response, a grassroots coalition of liberal Jews initiated inter-faith efforts aimed at ending a contro-versy that had essentially been manufactured out of thin air and was corroding relations between the Jewish and Muslim communi-ties in the city. Jacobs would not, however, relent. “We are more concerned now than we have ever been about a Saudi influence of local mosques,” heannounced at a suburban Boston synagogue in 2007.

After paying out millions of dol-lars in legal bills and enduring countless smears, the Islamic Society of Boston completed the construction of its community center in 2008. Meanwhile, not surprisingly, nothing came of the David Project’s dark warnings. As Boston-area National Public Radio reporter Philip Martin re-flected in September 2010, “The horror stories that preceded [the center’s] development seem shrill and histrionic in retrospect.”

The Network Expands

This second failed campaign was, in the end, more about movement building than success, no less na-tional security. The local crusade established an effective blueprint for generating hysteria against the establishment of Islamic centers and mosques across the country, while galvanizing a cast of char-acters who would form an anti-Muslim network which would gain attention and success in the years to come.

In 2007, these figures coalesced into a proto-movement that launched a new crusade, this time targeting the Khalil Gibran Inter-national Academy, a secular Ar-abic-English elementary school in Brooklyn, New York. Calling their ad hoc pressure group, Stop

NOVEMBER-20134 Muslim Newsthe Madrassah — madrassah-being simply the Arab word for “school” — the coalition’s activists included an array of previously unknown zealots who made no attempt to disguise their extreme views when it came to Islam as a religion, as well as Muslims in America. Their stated goal was to challenge the school’s establish-ment on the basis of its violation of the church-state separation in the U.S. Constitution. The true aim of the coalition, however, was transparent: to pressure the city’s leadership to adopt an antagonis-tic posture towards the local Mus-lim community.

The activists zeroed in on the school’s principal, Debbie Al-montaser, a veteran educator of Yemeni descent, and baselessly branded her “a jihadist” as well as a 9/11 denier. They also accused her of — as Pamela Geller, a far-right blogger just then gaining promi-nence put it, “whitewash[ing] the genocide against the Jews.” Daniel Pipes, a neoconservative academic previously active in the campaigns against Joseph Mas-sad and the Boston Islamic center (and whose pro-Likud think tank, Middle East Forum, has received $150,000 from Chernick)claimed the school should not go ahead because “Arabic-language in-struction is inevitably laden with Pan-Arabist and Islamist bag-gage.” As the campaign reached a fever pitch, Almontaser reported that members of the coalition were actually stalking her wher-ever she went.

Given what Columbia Journal-ism School professor and former New York Times reporter Samuel Freedman called “her clear, public record of interfaith activism and outreach,” including work with the New York Police Department and the Anti-Defamation League after the September 11th attacks, the assault on Almontaser seemed little short of bizarre — until her assailants discovered a photo-graph of a T-shirt produced by AWAAM, a local Arab feminist organization, that read “Intifada NYC.” As it turned out, AWAAM sometimes shared office space with a Yemeni-American associa-tion on which Almontaser served as a board member. Though the connection seemed like a stretch, it promoted the line of attack the Stop the Madrassah coalition had been seeking.

Having found a way to wedge the emotional issue of the Israel-Pal-estine conflict into a previously New York-centered campaign, the school’s opponents next gained a platform at the Murdoch-owned New York Post, where reporters Chuck Bennett and Jana Winter claimed her T-shirt was “appar-

ently a call for a Gaza-style up-rising in the Big Apple.” While Almontaser attempted to explain to the Post’s reporters that she re-jected terrorism, the Anti-Defa-mation League chimed in on cue. ADL spokesman Oren Segal told the Post: “The T-shirt is a reflec-tion of a movement that increas-ingly lauds violence against Israe-lis instead of rejecting it. That is disturbing.”

Before any Qassam rockets could be launched from Almontaser’s school, her former ally New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg caved to the growing pressure and threatened to shut down the school, prompting her to resign. A Jewish principal who spoke no Arabic replaced Almontaser, who later filed a lawsuit against the city for breaching her free speech rights. In 2010, the Equal Employ-ment Opportunity Commission ruled that New York’s Department of Education had “succumbed to the very bias that the creation of the school was intended to dispel” by firing Almontaser and urged it pay her $300,000 in damages. The commission also concluded that the Post had quoted her mislead-ingly.

Though it failed to stop the es-tablishment of the Khalil Gibran Academy, the burgeoning anti-Muslim movement succeeded in forcing city leaders to bend to its will, and having learned just how to do that, then moved on in search of more high-profile targets. As the New York Times reported at the time, “The fight against the school… was only an early skirmish in a broader, na-tional struggle.”

“It’s a battle that has really just be-gun,” Pipes told the Times.

From Scam to Publicity Coup

Pipes couldn’t have been more on the mark. In late 2009, the Is-lamophobes sprang into action again when the Cordoba Initia-tive, a non-profit Muslim group headed by Feisal Abdul Rauf, an exceedingly moderate Sufi Mus-lim imam who regularly traveled abroad representing the United States at the behest of the State Department, announced that it was going to build a community center in downtown New York City. With the help of investors, Rauf ’s Cordoba Initiative pur-chased space two blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan. The space was to contain a prayer area as part of a large community cent-er that would be open to everyone in the neighborhood.

None of these facts mattered to Pamela Geller. Thanks to con-stant prodding at her blog, Atlas Shrugged, Geller made Cordoba’s construction plans a national

issue, provoking fervent calls from conservatives to protect the “hallowed ground” of 9/11 from creeping Sharia. (That the “mosque” would have been out of sight of Ground Zero and that the neighborhood was, in fact,filled witheverything from strip clubs to fast-food joints didn’t matter.) Geller’s activism against Cordoba House earned the 52-year-old full-time blogger the attention she apparently craved, including a long profile in the New York Times and frequent cable news spots, es-pecially, of course, on Fox News.

Mainstream reporters tended to focus on Geller’s bizarre stunts. She posted a video of herselfs-plashing around in a string bi-kini on a Fort Lauderdale beach, for instance, while ranting about “left-tards” and “Nazi Hezbollah.” Her callfor boycotting Camp-bell’s Soup because the company offered halal — approved under Islamic law (as kosher food is un-der Jewish law) — versions of its products got her much attention, as did her promotion of a screed claiming that President Barack Obama was the illegitimate love-child of Malcolm X.

Geller had never earned a living as a journalist. She supported herself with millions of dollars in a divorce settlement and life insurance money from her ex-husband. He died in 2008, a year after being indicted for an alleged $1.3 million scam he was accused of running out of a car dealership he co-owned with Geller. Inde-pendently wealthy and with time on her hands, Geller proved able indeed when it came to exploit-ing her strange media stardom to incite the already organized po-litical network of Islamophobes to intensify their crusade.

She also benefited from close alli-ances with leading Islamophobes from Europe. Among Geller’s allies was Andrew Gravers, a Danish activist who formed the group Stop the Islamicization of Europe, and gave it the unusu-ally blunt motto: “Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense.” Gravers’ group inspired Geller’s own U.S.-based outfit, Stop the Islamicization of America, which she formed with her friend Robert Spencer, a pseudo-scholar whose bestselling books, including The Truth About Muhammad, Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion, prompted former advisor to Pres-ident Richard Nixon and Muslim activist Robert Crane to call him, “the principal leader… in the new academic field of Muslim bash-ing.” (According to the website Politico, almost $1 million in do-nations from Chernick has been

steered to Spencer’s Jihad Watch group through David Horowitz’s Freedom Center.)

Perfect sources for Republican political figures in search of the next hot-button cause, their rhet-oric found its way into the talk-ing points of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin as they propelled the crusade against Cordoba House into the national spotlight. Gin-grich soon compared the com-munity center to a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Memorial Mu-seum, while Palin called it “a stab in the heart” of “the Heartland.” Meanwhile, Tea Party candidates like Republican Ilario Pantano, an Iraq war veteran who killed two unarmed Iraqi civilians, shooting them 60 times — he even stopped to reload — made theiropposition to Cordoba House the centerpiece of midterm congressional cam-paigns conducted hundreds of miles from Ground Zero.

Geller’s campaign against “the mosque at Ground Zero” gained an unexpected assist and a veneer of legitimacy from established Jewish leaders like Anti-Defa-mation League NationalDirector Abraham Foxman. “Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational,” he remarked to the New York Times. Comparing the bereaved family members of 9-11 victims to Holo-caust survivors, Foxman insisted, “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would cat-egorize as irrational or bigoted.”

Soon enough, David Harris, di-rector of the (Chernick-funded) American Jewish Committee, wasdemanding that Cordoba’s leaders be compelled to reveal their “true attitudes” about Pal-estinian militant groups before construction on the center was initiated. Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, another major Jewish group, insisted it would be “insensitive” for Cordoba to build near “a cemetery,” though his organization had recently been granted permission from the municipality of Jerusalem to build a “museum of tolerance” to be called The Center for Hu-man Dignity directly on top of the Mamilla Cemetery, a Muslim graveyard that contained thou-sands of gravesites dating back 1,200 years.

Inspiration from Israel

It was evident from the involve-ment of figures like Gravers that the Islamophobic network in the United States represented a trans-Atlantic expansion of simmering resentment in Europe. There, the far-right was storming to victories in parliamentary elections across the continent in part by appealing

to the simmering anti-Muslim sentiments of voters in rural and working-class communities. The extent of the collaboration be-tween European and American Islamophobes has only contin-ued to grow with Geller, Spen-cer, and even Gingrich standing beside Europe’s most prominent anti-Muslim figure, Dutch par-liamentarian Geert Wilders, at a rally against Cordoba House. In the meantime, Geller was issu-ing statements of support for the English Defense League, a band of unreconstructed neo-Nazis and former members of the whites-only British National Party who intimidate Muslims in the streets of cities like Birmingham and London.

In addition, the trans-Atlantic Is-lamophobic crusade has stretched into Israel, a country that has come to symbolize the network’s fight against the Muslim men-ace. As Geller told the New York Times‘ Alan Feuer, Israel is “a very good guide because, like I said, in the war between the civilized man and the savage, you side with the civilized man.”

EDL members regularly wave Israeli flags at their rallies, while Wilders claims to have formed his views about Muslims during the time he worked on an Israeli cooperative farm in the 1980s. He has, he says, visited the country more than 40 times since to meet with rightist political allies like Aryeh Eldad, a member of the Is-raeli Knesset and leader of the far right Hatikvah faction of the Na-tional Union Party. He has called for forcibly “transferring” the Pal-estinians living in Israel and the occupied West Bank to Jordan and Egypt. On December 5th, for example, Wilders traveled to Is-rael for a “friendly” meetingwith Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieber-man, then declared at a press con-ference that Israel should annex the West Bank and set up a Pales-tinian state in Jordan.

In the apocalyptic clash of civi-lizations the global anti-Muslim network has sought to incite, tiny armed Jewish settlements like Yitzar, located on the hills above the occupied Palestinian city of Nablus, represent front-line for-tresses. Inside Yitzar’s state-fund-ed yeshiva, a rabbi named Yitzhak Shapira has instructed students in what rules must be applied when considering killing non-Jews. Shapira summarized his opinions in a widely publicized book, Torat HaMelech, orThe King’s Torah. Claiming that non-Jews are “un-compassionate by nature,” Shapira cited rabbinical texts to declare that gentiles could be killed in order to “curb their evil inclina-tions.” “There is justification,”

NOVEMBER-2013 5Muslim Newsthe rabbi proclaimed, “for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”

In 2006, the rabbi was briefly held by Israeli police for urging his sup-porters to murder all Palestinians over the age of 13. Two years later, according to the Israeli newspa-per Haaretz, hesigned a rabbini-cal letter in support of Israeli Jews who had brutally assaulted two Arab youths on the country’s Hol-ocaust Remembrance Day. That same year, Shapira was arrested as a suspect in helping orchestrate a rocket attack against a Palestinian village near Nablus.

Though he was not charged, his name came up again in connec-tion with another act of terror when, in January 2010, the Israeli police raided his settlement seek-ing vandals who had set fire to a nearby mosque. One of Shapira’s

followers, an American immi-grant, Jack Teitel, has confessed to murdering two innocent Pales-tinians and attempting to the kill the liberal Israeli historian Ze’ev Sternhell with a mail bomb.

What does all this have to do with Islamophobic campaigns in the United States? A great deal, ac-tually. Through New York-based tax-exempt non-profits like the Central Fund of Israel and Ateret Cohenim, for instance, the om-nipresent Aubrey Chernick has sent tens of thousands of dollars to support the Yitzar settlement, as well as to the messianic set-tlers dedicated to “Judaizing” East Jerusalem. The settlement move-ment’s leading online news maga-zine, Arutz Sheva, has featured Geller as a columnist. A friend of Geller’s, Beth Gilinsky, a right-wing activist with a group called the Coalition to Honor Ground Zero and the founder of the Jew-ish Action Alliance (apparently

run out of a Manhattan real estate office), organized a large rally in New York City in April 2010 to protest the Obama administra-tion’s call for a settlement freeze.

Among Chernick’s major funding recipients is a supposedly “apo-litical” group called Aish Hatorah that claims to educate Jews about their heritage. Based in New York and active in the fever swamps of northern West Bank settlements near Yitzar, Aish Hatorah shares an address and staff with a shad-owy foreign non-profit called the Clarion Fund. During the 2008 U.S. election campaign, the Clar-ion Fund distributed 28 million DVDs of a propaganda film called Obsession as newspaper inserts to residents of swing states around the country. The film featured a who’s who of anti-Muslim activ-ists, including Walid Shoebat, a self-proclaimed “former PLO terrorist.” Among Shoebat’s more striking statements: “A secular

dogma like Nazism is less danger-ous than is Islamofascism today.” At a Christian gathering in 2007, this “former Islamic terrorist” told the crowd that Islam was a “satan-ic cult” and that he had been born again as an evangelical Christian. In 2008, however, the Jerusalem Post, a right-leaning newspaper, exposed him as a fraud, whose claims to terrorism were fictional.

Islamophobic groups registered only a minimal impact dur-ing the 2008 election campaign. Two years later, however, after the Republicans regained con-trol of the House of Representa-tives in midterm elections, the network appears to have reached critical mass. Of course, the de-ciding factor in the election was the economy, and in two years, Americans will likely vote their pocketbooks again. But that the construction of a single Islamic community center or the imagi-nary threat of Sharia law were is-

sues at all reflected the influence of a small band of locally oriented activists, and suggested that when a certain presidential candidate who has already been demonized as a crypto-Muslim runs for ree-lection, the country’s most vocal Islamophobes could once again find a national platform amid the frenzied atmosphere of the cam-paign.

By now, the Islamophobic crusade has gone beyond the right-wing pro-Israel activists, cyber-bigots, and ambitious hucksters who conceived it. It now belongs to leading Republican presidential candidates, top-rated cable news hosts, and crowds of Tea Party ac-tivists. As the fervor spreads, the crusaders are basking in the glory of what they accomplished. “I didn’t choose this moment,” Gel-ler mused to the New York Times, “this moment chose me.”

Blumenthal is an award-win-ning journalist and bestselli

Ahmadis In Pakistan Face Unfair ElectionBY FAHEEM YOUNUS

May 9 at 1:46 pm

On May 11th, the world’s sec-ond most populous Muslim country, Pakistan, will mark a historic election. The coun-try’s 66-year history is marred by the presence of martial laws and never before has one elected government replaced another. As Pakistanis rush to the polling stations to cast their vote, over 4 million people will sit home, separated and disenfranchised.

They are the members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Commu-nity, a peaceful sect within Is-lam, who are the victims of this “separate but equal” electorate in Pakistan; a system rooted in religious discrimination.

Since the inception of Pakistan in 1947 to up until 1984, all Pa-kistanis voted on a joint elector-ate. Then Ahmadis were separat-ed from the mainstream in 1974 when Z. A. Bhutto appeased the clerics by constitutionally de-claring them “not Muslims.” A decade later, Zia-ul-Haq, Paki-stan’s military dictator, issued Or-dinance XX, further silencing the Ahmadis who could then be im-prisoned for up to three years for simply using Islamic terminology like “Assalamu alaikum” meaning “peace be upon you.”

In 1985, as a step towards pseudo-Islamization of the nation, Zia im-posed a separate electorate for all religious minorities, including the Ahmadis, who were required to declare themselves non-Muslims in order to gain the limited right to

vote for only the 5 percent minority seats of National Assembly.

Ahmadis saw such a self-declara-tion as a dissociation with Proph-et Muhammad. “That’s too high a price to pay for our fundamental right to vote” – they said and sat out during the next election.

In 2001, United States Commis-sion on International Religious Freedom (USCIR) called for an end to anti-Ahmadi discrimina-tion in Pakistan. As the diplo-matic pressure mounted, General Pervaiz Musharraf, proposed a

joint electorate in January 2002. Millions of Ahmadis – includ-ing members of my family – were overjoyed at the prospects of en-joying equal voting rights but then came the religious hardlin-ers, questioning the general’s loy-alty to his faith. Musharraf caved into the demands – allowing the Christian, Hindu and other mi-norities to vote on the joint elector-ate – but created a supplementary voter list only for the Ahmadis.

In the upcoming May 11th elec-tions, all Pakistani voters are re-

quired to check off their religion on Form 2 (Annex IV). Chris-tians, Hindus, and other minori-ties can simply check their respec-tive box and vote. But Muslim voters are also made to sign a dec-laration on the reverse side of the form, rejecting the founder of Ah-madiyya Muslim Community as a false prophet. Ahmadis are left with only one option: self declare themselves non-Muslims by using the supplemental voting sheet.

That’s a no-go scenario for a com-munity that calls itself the renais-

sance of Islam.

Ahmadis are fully aware of the facts and the consequences. Dur-ing the 2008 elections, the victory margin in 88 out of the 272 na-tional constituencies was less than 10,000 votes. The Ahmadi voting bloc could be decisive in such races. By protesting against this “separate but equal” system Ah-madis brace for a further squeeze by politicians who see no electoral incentive in protecting their hu-man rights.

A Pakistani woman walks past posters of a parliamentary election candidate. B.K. Bangash/Associated…)

Cont...6

NOVEMBER-20136 Muslim News

Joshua Hersh Become a fanjoshua.hersh@huffingtonpost.comBAMAKO, Mali -- When radical Islamists surged across northern Mali last year, temporarily seiz-ing control of major cities and imposing a harsh form of reli-gious law, they earned a stern public rebuke from an unexpect-ed religious source.

“What right do they have to take up arms to tell us how to practice Islam in our country?” Mahmoud Dicko, the head of Mali’s High Is-lamic Council, said in an interview at the time. “What right do they have to impose the Shariah here?”

It’s a view the imam still holds strongly.

“It was a bad form of the reli-gion,” said Dicko, referring to the foreign jihadists, in an interview with The Huffington Post earlier this month. “Even if it’s Islam, it’s not our way of Islam.”

But if Dicko’s continued condem-nation of the northern Islamists’ approach has been welcomed by the population in southern Mali, it has also taken some by surprise: In the capital city of Bamako, where he is based, Dicko is often cited as a potent symbol of the rise of a more assertive, conservative strain of Islam, which has quietly seeped across southern Mali and threatens to permanently alter the identity of this free-spirited nation.

Indeed, since taking the reins of the High Islamic Council a few years ago, Dicko has overseen a notable evolution in Mali’s tra-ditional religious practices, as more and more Malians study at religious schools funded by Gulf Arab states, a growing number of women wear head coverings and -- perhaps most significantly -- a strong-willed bloc of domes-tic Islamists, led by the council, has achieved substantial political clout in a country that is still of-ficially a secular republic.

“The Wahhabi infiltration is here in the south, too,” said Issa N’Diaye, a prominent Bamako-based academ-ic and political analyst, describing a type of ultra conservative Islam that has been spread by well-financed Gulf Arabs.

“They do all sorts of social ac-tions: building mosques, dig-ging wells, putting up hospitals,”

N’Diaye said. “They’re taking ac-tion in places where the state has been absent. At first it was a good thing, but it only grew and grew. Soon those organizations gained political power.” The traditional sources of political power, he la-mented, “are losing influence.”

Dicko hardly denies this to be the case. He just sees an impor-tant distinction between what happened in northern Mali and what’s going on in the southern regions.

“The problem there, in the north, is that they wanted to create a kind of standard Islam for all peo-ple -- and they will not get that,” he said. “The truth of the matter is the Malian people don’t like im-position of any kind -- religious, cultural, any of it. They don’t like being told what to do.”

Dicko, who is in his late 50s, be-lieves in the power of influence and persuasion, not force.

“Sure, Islam in Mali has become more conservative,” said the imam, as he reclined, dressed in a simple blue robe, in a sitting room of his understated home in suburban Bamako. Incense filled the air. “But one has to take into account the evolution of the re-ligion around the world. Many young Malians travel abroad now to study -- to Sudan, to Saudi Ara-bia, to Morocco -- and the impact of what they see in the world is, of course, going to influence them.”

In the 1970s, according to a recent paper by Alex Thurston, a North-western University researcher on Islam in West Africa, Dicko him-self studied abroad for many years

in Mauritania and Saudi Arabia. When he returned to Mali, he took over a popular and influen-tial Islamic radio station in Bam-ako, which he used to spread his views to the public in the 1980s and 1990s.

Thurston suggested that the anxi-ety of Bamako’s intellectual elite about the sudden rise of a power-ful Islamic bloc may be somewhat greater than the circumstances merit: The influential reach of Islam into Malian politics dates back at least two decades, to the creation of the first state-spon-sored Islamic organizations.

But in recent years, conservative Islamic forces have certainly be-gun to take on a more prominent, even coercive, role in Malian soci-ety. Muslim groups have protest-ed against bars and restaurants that serve alcohol in the vicinity of mosques. At least one such es-tablishment was burned down by an angry mob, residents say.

In 2011, in their most significant move yet, Islamic organizations led a controversial charge against a bill that would have modernized Mali’s “family code,” which regulates mat-ters like women’s rights and rules of inheritance. The bill, initially passed by the parliament in 2009 with wide backing from women’s rights groups, faced an unantici-pated wave of protest upon being presented to the public. Two years later, it was withdrawn.

Dicko did not deny that the Is-lamic High Council played “a very large role” in defeating the family law and that it did so be-cause it felt the bill violated ten-

ets of “our religious faith.” But he insisted, as he did repeatedly throughout the interview, that the council was merely acting as a conduit for the evolving de-sires of Mali’s population, not as an enforcer of its own views.

“When the people understood what was in the law, they said no. They were against it,” he said. “We -- and by that I mean the High Is-lamic Council -- we simply served in between the people and the power.”

“Our society is a good one, but we have bad governance,” Dicko went on. “If the politicians are not able to put our social values into the government system, to get a kind of balance between modernism and traditional values, that will result in some misunderstandings and challenges.”

The imam mentioned the recent actions against bars. It is only common sense, he argued, that places serving liquor be banned from operating within a cer-tain, reasonable distance from mosques. But he said he initially held off his followers from direct-ly confronting bar owners, urg-ing that they not take the law into their own hands.

“There were people who did want to destroy bars, but I said, ‘No, we must first find out what the law is,’” he recalled. What they found, he said, was that many of the of-fending bars lacked proper li-censes. “We are just calling for the administration to pay attention to the laws that already exist.”

It’s a perspective that suggests the worst fears of Mali’s intellectual

elite -- that a southern invasion of radical Islam is underway -- may not be quite right, but at the same time, the society is changing. And it’s a change, Dicko argues, that’s happening on its own.

He added, “I want everyone to understand that in today’s world, we don’t need violence to change things. We have ideological de-bates, we have public space, we want to lead people through these teachings, not compel them.”

Captions by the Associated Press

Islam In The Press EyesGiven below are some snapshots of how the media presents Islam today. Mali’s Top Islamic Leader Sees Conservative Values Flourishing At Home

Yet, some do stand up for justice as a moral imperative. In April 2013, 33 members of the U.S. Congress signed a joint letter to the Secretary of State John Kerry regarding the denial of Ahmadi voting rights in Pakistan. They in-dicated that if Pakistani Ahmadis are not included in the joint elec-torate they will not be able to en-dorse the results of May 11th elec-tions.

Many of those of Pakistani de-scent who live in the United States maintain their Pakistani citizen-ship and have the right to vote in May 11th elections as oversees cit-izens. I call upon their conscience to renounce Pakistan’s “separate but equal” electorate by demand-ing a new presidential order. Un-less that happens, the claims of a fair or historic election is a sham.

Dr. Faheem Younus is the founder of Muslimerican.com. He can be reached at talk@Muslimerican.com. Follow him on Twitter @FaheemYounus

From...5

NOVEMBER-2013 7Muslim News

Posted by Zia Shah

Oct 19, 2013 12.19AM IST

Times of India

Epigraph: Indeed, Allah com-mands you to make over the trusts to those entitled to them, and that, when you judge be-tween men, you judge with jus-tice. And surely excellent is that with which Allah admonishes you! Allah is All-Hearing, All-Seeing. (Al Quran 4:59)

Source: Abid Khan, Press Secre-tary AMJ International London

This Muslim Times’ post was originally made by Zubair Khan, from Germany

On 28 September 2013, the World Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (Jamaat), His Holi-ness and Fifth Khalifa, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad held an audience with more than twenty Indonesian guests representing various media, educational in-stitutions and think-tanks at the Taha Mosque in Singapore.

During the 70 minute question and answer session, His Holiness explained the true teachings of Is-

lam and clarified various miscon-ceptions concerning the Ahmadi-yya Muslim Jamaat.

Speaking about the fact that some non-Ahmadi clerics deemed Ah-madi Muslims to be non-Muslim,

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

The Holy Prophet taught that no one has the right to call any per-son who utters the Kalima to be a non-Muslim. The truth is that no human being or power has the right to deny what is in the heart of another person.

Speaking about the progress of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

Immense goals and objectives cannot be achieved overnight. However we believe that if not in this generation, then in fu-ture generations, we will win the

hearts of people across the world in vast numbers. It will be a long process but no doubt we will be successful.

Upon being asked whether there could be more than one Khilafat

within Islam, Hazrat Mirza Mas-roor Ahmad said:

There cannot be a Khilafat in each sect of Islam. If Muslims wish to progress then they have to unite upon the leadership of one person in accordance with the prophecy of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) who said that the Institution of Khilafat will be established with-in the community of the Prom-ised Messiah. Certainly, you will not find any other Islamic com-munity that is united like the Ah-madiyya Community. Wherever

our members are in the world they act in the same way and have the same beliefs.

In answer to a question about whether Khilafat and democracy are compatible, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

Khilafat has no relation to govern-ment or politics. When Ahmadiyy-at spreads far and wide the Khila-fat will play no role in government and will never interfere with mat-ters of State. We have no political ambitions or desires. We believe entirely in a separation of religion and matters of State.

The Khalifa was also asked why Ahmadi Muslims were against violent Jihad. In response, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad explained that the circumstances in which the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was permit-ted to wage a defensive war in order to protect all religions. He said no such conditions existed in today’s world.

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

Today religious wars are not being waged against Islam. Rather, Islam is being attacked in the media and

in print. Thus, the Jihad of today is to publish literature and books in favour of true and peaceful Islam. That is what the Ahmadiyya Mus-lim Jamaat is doing we are publish-ing literature in various languages explaining the true teachings of Islam.

Concluding by speaking of the transparent nature of the Ah-madiyya Muslim Jamaat, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

All of our teachings and all of our beliefs are clear and open. They can be easily accessed in our literature and on our websites. Our mission-aries are ready to answer any ques-tion at any time. We have never hidden any of our beliefs and we never will.

Additional Reading

Our Collection about Separation of Mosque-Church and State

Alislam-eGazette Publishes a Landmark Volume on Separation of Mosque-Church and State

Read more: http://w w w . t h e m u s l i m t i m e s .or g / 2 0 1 3 / 0 9 / a s i a / t r u e - k h -i l a f a t - c o m p a t i b l e - w i t h -democracy#ixzz2iY8TBCiI

Islam No Longer A Religion Of The Male’

True Khilafat Compatible With Democracy

M N Karassery

Oct 19, 2013

12.19AM IST

Times of India

The survey has indeed debunked the myth propagated by the Mus-lim clergy that Islam is a religion of the male, by the male and for the male.

Muslim clergy at all times and in all regions has arrogated to itself the final say even on burning is-sues concerning women. I must say that this notion is un-Islamic. The survey has proved beyond doubt that girls should also have a say in deciding religious matters that directly affect their lives.

Those who want to marginalize women conveniently forget that

there were a number of women in the assembly of Prophet Muham-mad. He gave them opportunity to ask questions and seek clarifi-cations on certain stances.

He allowed women to travel with him even during the times of war. His beloved wife Aisha has report-ed many sayings of the Prophet and has even given her own interpreta-tion of religious laws.

The meeting of religious scholars in Kozhikode on September 21, 2013, to discuss the marriage-able age of Muslim girls was un-fortunately an assembly of men alone. There was not even a single woman to represent the voice of women. Such a meeting is totally contradictory to the tradition es-tablished by the Prophet and his disciples. Caliph Umar, who ruled

from AD 634 to 644, always con-sulted women in religious matters which affected them.

I am so happy to learn that the girls have come forward to ex-press themselves, questioning the clergy. We have seen that in every religious community the clergy behaves like landlords and treats the followers as tenants. The re-ligious leaders reserve the right to opine on religious matters to themselves. But they forget that the Prophet himself has declared that “no priesthood in Islam”.

It is heartening to see the demo-cratic spirit in expressing one’s own views on religious issues. Democracy need not be con-fined to politics alone; it can be applied to all walks of life, in-cluding religion.

The finding of the survey that the Muslim girls are anxious to pur-sue studies and want to be inde-pendent after getting jobs is quite encouraging. I am sure they had the arranged marriages in their minds when they said they are reluctant to marry persons from other communities. The notori-ous ‘honor killing’ is a custom in other parts of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Fortunately, it has not yet entered Kerala.

The finding of the survey that ma-jority is in favor of moral policing is really disturbing. Though we need morality and policing, both are lacking in moral policing, which emanates from religious fundamentalism. It is plain reli-gious goondaism.

Muslim girls have made giant

strides in Kerala in the past three decades. Their progress in the field of education is amaz-ing. I suspect that the clergy and the so-called community leaders are apprehensive of the success the girls have achieved in all walks of life.

It was really surprising to see that different Muslim organisations were anxious to bury their differ-ences in belief and practice and sat together to rein in the women. We know that this is not a new thing. A similar situation had emerged in 1985 when the Su-preme Court ruled that a Muslim husband should give maintenance to his divorced wife till her remar-riage or death.

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NOVEMBER-20138 Muslim News

NEW BEGINNINGS: Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad and King Tuheitia at the opening in South Auckland of New Zealand’s big-gest mosque.

Islam’s holy book, the Koran, has been translated into Maori by an 81-year-old Pakistani physicist.

“It took six or seven years to learn Maori,” translator Shakil Ahmad Monir said yesterday at its launch at the new Baitul Muqeet mosque - the country’s largest, with a capacity of 700 - in Homai, Auckland.

“It was quite hard, but I didn’t give up,” said Monir.

The Koran, in Te Reo, is Kur’anu Tapu.

Monir confessed to struggling a little with Maori plurals. His ad-vancing years posed a few prob-lems too, he said.

“My eyes are failing me a bit,” he said. “And my memory, but I will not give up.”

Much of the world of Islam ob-jects to the translation of the Ko-

ran from Arabic, saying that is the language given to mankind by the Prophet Mohammed.

This translation - as well as trans-lations of sayings and verses from the Koran in Samoan and Fijian - was carried out by the Ahmadi-yya Muslims, a much-persecuted group founded in India. The translation sits next to the origi-nal Arabic text.

Ahmadiyya’s caliph or leader, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, was joined by the Maori King, Tuheitia Paki, yesterday to launch the translation.

The caliph told the Sunday Star-Times the mainstream Islamic notion that Muslims had to take the word of God in Arabic was wrong. “They have deviated from the right path.”

He did not know how many Maori followed Islam but he hoped more would come now that the Koran has been translated. The objective of translating it into 73 languages was because not everybody could understand Arabic.

“There is nothing sinful, it is nec-essary and essential to hear the true message of the Koran for the people in the language they speak,” the caliph said.

Prophet Mohammed had a mes-sage for all, and all deserved to be able to read it, he said

The caliph said the Koran did not preach jihad or holy war, and extremist Muslims were not act-ing in accordance with the true teachings. The Koran stated only that the righteous could defend themselves when attacked. The same applied for all religions.

“If we are defending Islam, we are defending all religions.”

Ahmadiyya are not regarded as extremists, but Pakistani authori-ties regard them as apostate and thus illegal.

Their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, aimed to reform current practices in Islam that were not consistent with the teachings of the Holy Koran and Prophet Mo-hammed.

Compiled by H. Koya (PhD)

October 30, 20130 comments

Press Release – Ahmadiyya Mus-lim Jama’at NZ Inc

The international spiritual leader of more than 100 million Ah-madi Muslims has arrived in New Zealand. The World Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and Fifth Khalifa, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad was welcomed by King Tuheitia to Trangawae-wae marae …October 30, 2013

Muslim supreme head arrives in New Zealand

The international spiritual leader of more than 100 million Ahmadi Mus-lims has arrived in New Zealand.

The World Head of the Ahmadi-yya Muslim Community and Fifth Khalifa, Hazrat Mirza Mas-roor Ahmad was welcomed by King Tuheitia to Tūrangawaewae marae in Ngaruawahia today along with 100 Ahmadi Muslims

from the Auckland community, which presented the completed Maori translation of the Holy Qur’an to the Maori people.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim com-munity has been working on the translation project for more than 20 years. The first 16 parts were released to New Zealanders in 2010 in the form of a book com-prising of both the original Arabic text with Maori translation.

As part of his NZ tour His Holi-ness will also be officially opening one of the largest mosques in New Zealand. The mosque in Manu-kau, Auckland will officially open on Friday, November 1 at 1pm and will also mark the beginning of the community’s annual spiritual con-vention expected to attract more than 300 international guests. By mid November the mosque will also be open to the public.

The mosque is set on a 2.1 ha site and is able to house 600 worship-

pers at one time.

Mohammad Iqbal, National Pres-ident of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community New Zealand says it is a privilege and honour to be able to host His Holiness.

“His Holiness has been hugely in-fluential overseas and recently ad-dressed the European Parliament, Capitol Hill and the Canadian Government, ” says Mr Iqbal. “His Holiness is also incredibly fascinating in his own right with strong and vocal opinions on the Syrian conflict.”

Upon completing his Masters De-gree in Agricultural Economics in Pakistan, His Holiness dedicated his life to Islam and served in Ghana from 1977 to 1985 before returning to Pakistan. During this time His Holiness was engaged in social, educational and agri-cultural development projects. He is accredited with successfully growing wheat on Ghanaian soil

for the first time in the nation’s history.

About terrorism His Holiness be-lieves that peace should always be encouraged. Ahmadi Muslims are highly persecuted internation-ally in countries like Pakistan and Indonesia, where basic freedoms have been stripped. His Holiness continues to encourage peace in the face of continued targeted killings and unlawful arrests.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Com-munity is a dynamic, fast-growing international revival movement within Islam. Founded in 1889 by Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) in Punjab, India, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community spans 200 countries with mem-bership exceeding tens of mil-lions.

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Muslim Supreme Head Arrives In New Zealand

Elder Learns Te Reo To Translate Koran

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NOVEMBER-2013 9Muslim News

Prime Minister David Cameron Praises Young British MuslimsCategory: EnglandPublished on Friday, 01 November 2013 09:51Written by Tapa Menon

Young Muslims are planning to turn up at Heathrow Airport and London’s rail and underground stations in force – to collect mon-ey for the Poppy Appeal.

Members of the Ahmadiyya Mus-lim Youth Association (AMYA) will be helping The Royal British Legion for the fourth year running as a mark of good citizenship and a testament to the Islamic edict of demonstrating loyalty to your country.

More than 300 AMYA volunteers will be stationed at train and tube stations across the city of London, as well as other parts of the UK, with the hope of raising more than £20,000.

This is part of a nationwide cam-paign by the AMYA to contribute to the country in different ways. Other initiatives have included blood drives, charity events, green

initiatives, peace conferences, and interfaith meetings.

The Worldwide Head of the Ah-madiyya Muslim Community, His Holiness, Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

“Muslims are obliged to be loyal to the country in which they live. Honouring those who fought to defend and safeguard one’s coun-try is an important principle of Islam and in fact is an important principle of peace – especially when it is carried out with a sin-cere heart and for the sake of win-ning God’s pleasure.”

Prime Minister David Cameron said:

“I send my best wishes to the Ahmadiyya Muslim youth or-ganisation who are supporting this year’s Poppy Appeal. I’m delighted to hear over 300 mem-bers will be out in force through-out November collecting at train stations and other places around the country. It’s great to see so many young people giving up

their own time to help those who have served our country while remembering those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.”

Russell Thompson OBE, Director of Fundraising at The Royal Brit-ish Legion, said:

‘’Our beneficiaries come from all walks of life, as do our support-ers, and we are proud to be an or-ganisation that stands shoulder to shoulder with people of all faiths and backgrounds. We are grateful to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association for collecting for this year’s Poppy Appeal...

‘’The money they raise will make it possible for the Legion to provide our beneficiaries with £1.4million every week in direct welfare support.”

Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg said:

“Each year, hundreds and thou-sands of volunteers brave the cold to sell their poppies up and down the country...Among those

giving their time -and hoping to raise thousands of pounds- are the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association, who will once again be selling poppies at underground and railway stations. This volun-teer work represents an essential part of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community’s really important contribution to UK national life – whether through helping to raise wider awareness and understand-ing of the Islamic faith, or fund-raising and feeding the homeless, donating blood, and other chari-table acts.

So I’d like to extend a big thank you to all those involved in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth As-sociation... who will be out there with their collection boxes, sell-ing poppies for the Royal British Legion.”

The Home Secretary Theresa May said:

“The Ahmadiyya Muslim Associ-ation has a long tradition of rais-ing money for good causes and

has raised more than £1.5million for various charities including the Royal British Legion. I wel-come this latest campaign by their youth association and would en-courage everyone who sees them collecting for the Poppy Appeal to give generously.”

Commenting on the AMYA’s col-lections in London, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said:

“The Poppy Appeal gives us all the perfect opportunity to give some-thing back to those brave men and women who have served our country, as well as support those who have helped them in their time of need. I know Londoners across the city will be joining me to help raise over a £1million on London Poppy Day so that the Royal British Legion can continue its excellent and life enhancing work. The fantastic efforts of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Asso-ciation, which is hoping to raise a stonking £30,000, will help ensure we reach that target.”

Oye! News from England

NEW START: Mohammed Iqbal and Shafiq Ur Rehman are thrilled with the Ahmadiyya Muslim community’s newly completed mosque in Wiri.

Prayers For OpeningSCOTT MORGAN

B RU C E M E RC E R / FA I R-FA X M E DIA

SPECIAL VISIT: His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, spiritual leader of the worldwide Ahmaddiyya Muslim Commu-nity, pictured at Turangawaewae Marae, will open the new mosque today. Photo: BRUCE MER-CERhs/hsFAIRFAX MEDI

The opening of New Zealand’s largest purpose-built mosque will be beamed live to millions of Muslims around the globe today.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim com-munity’s worldwide spiritual leader Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad will lead his regular Fri-day prayers after officially open-ing the new Wiri building.

“Wherever the supreme lead-er delivers his Friday prayers from, it’s televised around the world,” Ahmadiyya New Zea-land central missionary Shafiq Ur Rehman says.

The 400-strong community is “hugely appreciative” of the chance to open a mosque in New Zealand because it faces persecution else-where, Mr Rehman says.

“We are thankful of the free-dom here. In Pakistan they have declared us non-Mus-lims. There’s no right to use Islamic terminology. Hun-dreds have been martyred.”

Ahmadiyya goes right back to foundation teachings of the Mus-lim faith, he says.

“Islam is peace. We’re trying to re-move misunderstandings. There are a lot of negative stereotypes. We strongly condemn terrorism of any form.”

Ahmadiyya New Zealand nation-al president Mohammed Iqbal says it is fantastic to have the building completed in time for the group’s 25th anniversary in New Zealand.

“It’s the first proper house of wor-ship for us - a proper mosque,” he says.

“It’s all been self-funded by com-munity members within New Zea-land. We had some fundraisers but people really rallied together to dip into their own pockets.”

The mosque can accommodate up to 500 and will be used mainly for prayers but other events can also be held.

Win EASY $50 from Oye! Times. Paid Worldwide

Mr Iqbal says its location serves its community well, with worship-pers coming from as far away as Whangarei and Hamilton.

Today’s event also marks the launch of the Kur’anu Tapu - a version of the Muslim holy book, the qur’an - translated into Maori.

“It’s taken 25 years to complete the translation,” Mr Iqbal says.

A partially completed version was released in 2010.

- © Fairfax NZ New

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NOVEMBER-201310 Muslim News

By Jamie Anfenson-Comeau Staff Writer

Greg Dohler/The Gazette

University of Maryland, College Park, student Adeel Malik (front, left), president of the student chapter of Humanity First, and Humanity First member Waleed Mahmood (front, right) of Ger-mantown, lead a walkathon Sun-day at the campus in College Park to raise awareness and money to fight hunger.

More than 200 people of vary-ing faiths answered the call of a Muslim youth group to combat hunger, taking part in a walka-thon through the University of Maryland, College Park, campus Sunday afternoon.

The walk, hosted by the Silver Spring-based Ahmadiyya Mus-lim Youth Organization (Ma-jlis Khuddam-ul Ahmadiyya, or MKA), drew in students and community members as part of the organization’s efforts to fight hunger and promote the image of Islam as a religion of peace. The walk raised more than $21,000 locally and $90,000 as part of a national campaign to raise funds for hunger-related nonprofits, ac-cording to Saima Sheikh, media associate with Ahmadiyya Mus-lim Community USA, the youth group’s parent organization.

The MKA is a service-based or-ganization that works to pro-mote Islam as a religion of peace through its grassroots Muslims for Peace campaign and to high-

light Islam’s call to service through its Muslim Youth Against Hunger campaign, according to its website.

“We wanted to highlight the point that all religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, what-ever religion we say, they are pro-moting the sanctity of life,” said Naseem Mahdi, vice president of Ahmadiyya Muslim Commu-nity USA. “I believe that we are all united on this issue, that we should fight against hunger, we should fight against poverty, and we should fight against terrorism and violence, especially in the name of religion.”

Mahdi said the group’s efforts also help to combat negative stereo-types of Muslims in the media.

“Naturally, with this work we are trying to bring forth the real face of Islam. The real face of Islam is not about killing innocents. It is about the teachings of promoting life and peace and helping others,” Mahdi said.

Five student organizations — Health Leads, Medlife, Food Re-covery Network, Humanity First Student Organization and the As-sociation of Indian Development — partnered with the university branch of the youth organiza-tion and brought their members

to the event, said Haris Raja, 31, assistant vice president of the Ah-madiyya Community’s Muslim Youth Organization and a recent graduate from the University of Maryland.

“We want to show support and solidarity for our fellow Ameri-cans who are in need, and we want to play an active role in alleviating hunger,” Raja said. “Just in this area, we have 12 percent of the Prince George’s population who are food inse-cure. We are trying to combat that hunger problem with our efforts however much we can.”

Rakiba Kibria, marketing and fundraising assistant for the New York-based nonprofit organiza-tion WhyHunger, one of the or-ganizations being aided by walk, said the nonprofit organization works with partners in the U.S. and abroad that promote healthy, nutritious food for everyone.

“Islam is rooted in volunteerism, and MKA really symbolizes it to the extreme,” Kibria said. “They’re really focusing on hunger and putting it on a positive route, so Muslim youth can have a positive impact as well.”

janfenson-comeau@gazette.net

Updated at 8:18 pm on 29 Octo-ber 2013

The spiritual leader of a world-wide Muslim community perse-cuted in some Islamic countries was welcomed onto the Turan-gawaewae marae in Ngaruawahia on Tuesday.

He is the Caliph of the Ahmadi-yya Muslim community, His Ho-liness Mirza Masroor Ahmad.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Commu-nity was founded in 1889 and has millions of followers worldwide and about 400 in New Zealand.

The fifth Caliph is in New Zea-land to open the sect’s first mosque in this country in Auck-land on Friday.

His Holiness has presented a copy of the first Koran to be translated into Te Reo Maori to the Maori King, Tuheitia. The translation has taken 25 years to complete.

The Ahmadiyya community is not recognised by mainstream Is-lam because of its recognition of all prophets.

It is persecuted in countries such as Pakistan and recognised a

Muslim Leader Visits Turangawaewae Marae

Hundreds Walk To Stamp Out Hunger, Promote PeaceHis Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad, wearing white, was welcomed onto the marae. RADIO NEW ZEALAND

Muslim Youth Group Effort Raises $21K At College Park Campus Event

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NOVEMBER-2013 11Muslim News

Lodi Islamic Cemetery Bars Ahmadi MuslimsBy Zahid Buksh

Dear Sir/Madam,

Let me introduce myself. My name is Zahid Ali Buksh. I am a United States citizen and a Gulf War veteran. I am a member of the American Legion, James McDermott post 172 and of the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) Tracy, California. I migrated to the United States in 1989 because I wanted to live in this great coun-try of opportunities. I joined the United States Army two months after migrating here not because of benefits, because I wanted to serve my country the best I could and I thought that there could be no greater sacrifice than serving in the military. It was what I thought to be the Ameri-can dream. I went through basic training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. After that I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas with the Second Ar-mored Division and then the First Cavalry.

From there I was deployed to Ku-wait/Iraq to serve in Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield in 1990 and 1991. After an Honor-able discharge from the Army I worked in Construction and at Agnews Developmental Center respectively. From there I joined the California Highway Patrol and am proud to say that I am still with the CHP as a Motor Carrier Specialist I and the United States Department of Transportation/Federal Motor Carrier Safety Al-liance as a Safety Auditor/Investi-gator. The reason that I am writ-ing is to ask for your help with a matter close to my heart. I am a Muslim by birth. I belong to Ah-madiyya Anjuman Ishaat-I-Islam (Lahore) USA (also known as Lahore Ahmadees), a minority sect of Muslims. Recently I at-tended a funeral in Lodi, Ca. at the California Islamic Cemetery and thought about being buried

there since it was close to where I live. I asked for an application and was given the Islamic Ceme-tery of California Burial Require-ments and Agreement. To my shock and disbelief I found out that I am not allowed to be buried there because I am not considered a Muslim by this organization. It states on the application (which is attached with this letter) “Islamic Cemetery of California (Cem-etery) is a non-profit cemetery for (Muslims) the followers of Islamic faith. Non-Muslims.Quadyannis, Lahori Mirzai, Munkir-e-HAD-ITH (those who deny traditions of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh),Shia and Agh Khanis are not permit-ted to be buried at this cemetery.” All of the minority groups listed on the application are followers of the Muslim faith. None of them deny the traditions of the Proph-et Muhammad (pbuh). Who are they to say that I am not a Muslim and cannot be buried in The Is-lamic Cemetery of California, (a non-profit organization). I can be buried in any National Cemetery in the United States of America for serving this country. One of the reasons I came to this coun-try was the freedom of religion. I cannot believe that such discrimi-nation exists right here in our backyard, in this wonderful na-tion. It is called the Islamic Cem-etery of California, (a non-profit organization) and should be open to all Muslims who wish to be bur-ied there no matter what sect of Islam they belong to. I recite the Kalimah “La-ilaha-ill-Allah Mu-hammad-ar-Rasul Allah” (There is no God but Allah and Mu-hammad is his messenger). I con-duct the offering of prayers like other Muslims. I accept the Qi-blah as his Qibla. I eat the meat of animals slaughtered by Muslims. I give Zakat (alms) to the needy. I observe fast during the month of Ramadan. If God willing I will perform the hajj. This is what I

believe defines a Muslim. I tried to find out if it was acceptable in the United States to discriminate against a minority sect of a par-ticular religion. I could not find any law specifically related to my case. However on the internet I found on October 27, 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had appealed for tolerance of Is-lamic Minorities. This appeal was in response to a question from Representative Chris Smith, who voiced concern about Christians, Hindus and other religious mi-norities in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Egypt. Secretary of State Clinton stated that the problem was not only against Christians or against Hindus, it was against different sects of Muslims. Sec-retary of State Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Commit-tee that, “This is one of our big-gest problems in the world right now. There needs to be a greater acceptance of religious tolerance and in so many places there is no history of religious tolerance.” If the United States Secretary of State has asked other countries to stop discriminating, why is it happening in our country? Should we be quiet and just toler-ate it, or do we do something and stop this wrong from continuing here on American soil and set an example for other nations. I have also found a case similar to this in South Africa. It is called the South Africa Case. It happened in Cape Town in 1982. Mr. Ismail Peck, a Lahore Ahmadee, had been de-nied burial of his mother in the Muslim section of Vygekraal Cemetary, where his father and brother were already buried. La-hore Ahmadees were also denied entry to the mosques by the Sunni organization. On November 28th gave his judgement in favor of the Lahore Ahmadees by declaring that Mr. Ismail Peck was a Muslim within the accepted definitions in Islam and that he was entitled to

all rights and privileges enjoyed by other Muslims. The full judge-ment of this case in printed in full in the January/March 1986 issue of the Paigam-e-Haqq. You can also refer to the article by Maul-ana Hafiz Sher Muhammad titled Who is a Muslim in the publica-tion IQRA World Muslim Con-vention of Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-I-Islam(Lahore) Fiji, 5-7 April, 1985. Maulana Hafiz Sher Muhammad was the sole expert witness in the final hearing of the South Africa case. The judge, Mr. Justice J. Williamson, wrote of Maulana Hafiz Sher Muhammad: “In my estimation the witness is a man of great learning and integ-rity. He gave evidence before me for some six days and created and extremely favourabe impression. I accept his evidence without hesitation.” So if the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat-I-Islam (Lahore) won this case in South Africa stat-ing that the Lahore Ahmadees are Muslims, then who gives the Islamic Cemetery of California the right to say that I am not a Muslim and that I cannot be bur-ied there.

Is it the norm here in the United States for this kind of segrega-tion to occur? I wonder how many Muslims they have turned away because they were consid-ered Non Muslims by the Islamic Cemetery of California, a Non-Profit organization. In that same thought we have to think of all the discrimination that must be happening with other minorities. This only became aware to me once I inquired about being bur-ied here. I have attended funerals here before but never knew of the discrimination going on here. I know that it is probably happen-ing at other institutions and no one has said anything, or knows what to do about it. The major-ity of the minorities are afraid to go up against the larger groups,

for fear of retaliation and there-fore remain silent and continue to tolerate this kind of behaviors. Must we tolerate discrimina-tion in this country as well. Most people come to America to have the freedom to practice their religion, without discrimination from anyone. Not to continue be-ing oppressed by the majority. This may be an isolated incident but I doubt it. I am sure that it is happening in small towns to big cities. We just are not aware of it. We need to do something to help all the minorities not just Mus-lims. I am glad I found out now and not when I needed to bury a family member. I cannot imagine what a person would feel and end up doing at a time when they are mourning the loss of a loved one to be confronted with an issue like this. There are laws about Dis-crimination but I would like there to be , 1985 Justice Williamson a law that prohibits this kind of discrimination against minor-ity sects, be it Muslim, Christian, Hindus, or any one for that mat-ter. This is where I need your help. Please inform me as to what my rights are and what we can do to change things. I am hoping that by working together, we can end this injustice and make this an even greater nation.

Sincerely,

Zahid Ali Buksh

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