The Bohra reform movement was hot news during the 1970s and the 1990s. Nothing was seen in the newspapers thereafter and many people thought that this movement has died down, like many other social movements. This, however, is not true. It is still quite alive and kicking.

The reformist Bohras are fighting against totalitarianism for their democratic and human rights, which the Bohra priesthood flagrantly violates. They are denied freedoms as fundamental as that of speech. They had started writing on corruption within the religious establishment headed by the priesthood, which has assumed monstrous powers.

Another resolution was passed to demand the setting up of a Shi’ah Wakf Board so that interests of reformist Bohra properties and other Shi’ah properties also could be taken care of. More resolutions were passed on the recent corruption scandals such as the Commonwealth Games scam and the 2G scam, in which politicians and government officials have been involved. While condemning such instances the resolution urged on civil society to work more actively to combat corruption and to usher in clean and transparent governance. -- Asghar Ali Engineer

Today I was studying Surah Al Balad ( the city meaning the city of Makkah) of the Holy Quran. Two things struck me in the Surah. First, God says to the Prophet (PBUH).”You are free in the city (to punish the enemies of Islam). And then in a later verse says, “Then he became one of those who believed, and recommended one another to perseverance and patience, and (also) recommended one another to pity and compassion.” -- Maulana Aslam Qadri, NewAgeIslam.com

In fact Kerala needed foreign investment for the development of its infrastructure. A big population of Kerala lives in Gulf countries out of which 50 per cent is Muslim. Muslims send about Rs 20,000 crore to the country every year. The money sent by the Muslims and non-Muslims from the Gulf countries was not being used for economic development. Only 0.45 per cent of the foreign money went to Kerala government. So the Kerala government thought that if non-interest banking system was introduced in Kerala, huge foreign investment could be attracted to the state which will not only benefit the common man but also help build infrastructure of the state. -- New Age Islam News Bureau

Since the House of Saud’s takeover of Arabia, following its foundational alliances with British imperialists and Wahhabi ideologues, it is an open secret that the princes-cum-businessmen are waging a war of steel and concrete against great sign posts of Islamic history that even neo-Qurayshi dictators like Yazid ibn Mu‘awiyah had dared not disturb. A list is in order here — a mere slice of the nearly 300 Islamic structures that have been dynamited, bulldozed, and paved down in the past 80 years. It is a remarkable testament to Muslims’ gifts of preservation that the homes and other intimate structures of the early Makkan period of Islam have stood secure through the long centuries of dynastic change and political uncertainty. These landmarks of the close associations and fraternal bonds through which a fledging Islam gained a social presence have now disappeared in the region’s necro-commercialization.-- Zainab Cheema

These days, Pakistan is gripped by the hysteria of blasphemy, particularly about insulting the exalted Prophet Muhammad or the Holy Qur’an. This situation is fast creating a national divide which spreads hatred against each other based upon what they believe and others believe. Every sect then considers itself right and all others wrong. The divergent beliefs thrust them to a massive enmity to the extent of absolute intolerance. The fanatics among the religious people have no hesitation in killing their opponents. Pakistan could possibly be heading towards a civil war.

30:32 Those who split up their religion becoming sects, each sect delighting in whatever beliefs they have. [3:104, 6:160, 23:53, 42:13. Sectarianism is invariably based on taking humans as ‘authorities’]

Pakistan is the country with the harshest laws on blasphemy. Any reported incidence of blasphemy against the Prophet or the Qur’an is punishable by death. A confirmed blasphemer has to be irrevocably sentenced to death. Unfortunately, the majority of Pakistanis, even the educated ones, are under the influence of despicable Mullahs. -- Dr. Shabbir Ahmed

Revolutionary Islamism entails the two distinct denominations of Islam in West Asia. The US’s attempt to win over this attitude is flawed because it undermines the fact that such radical views are backed by structural and communal issues....

Why do people support Hamas and Hizbullah? Obviously, one reason is that they fight Israel (a country with which Jordan is at peace, by the way) but sympathy for the revolutionary Islamist aspect of Hamas and Hizbullah must be a huge factor here. Indeed, there is not necessarily any conflict between these two aspects. The Islamists are considered to be better fighters than the nationalists, while making war for the next generation is more attractive to those backing Hamas and Hizbullah than is making peace (a strategy associated with the Palestinian Authority and Fatah). Finally, let’s not forget that both of these groups are very anti-Western and anti-American. -- Barry Rubin

This is also clear from his complete lack of concern for non-Muslims in Kashmir, who do not merit any mention at all in his book, and who, presumably, would be condemned to second-class status or worse in the state that Qari dreams of establishing, in line with the recommendations of Syed Abul Ala Maududi, founder of the Jamaat-i Islami. This logically follows from (a leader of the Jamaat-e-i Islami of Jammu and Kashmir Qari)

Saifuddin’s basic premise of an undying hostility inherent in the relations between Islam and other religions, between pious Muslims and upholders of ‘falsehood’. Again, I must admit, doctrinaire Islamists like Saifuddin are hardly unique in this regard, a dogged obsession with rhetoric and blindness to plain and simple reality uniting them with fellow ‘fundamentalist’ exclusivists in other communities as well.

As religion gets transformed into ideology, Islam comes to be reduced to a set of powerful and emotive slogans—‘Islam provides full social justice'; 'Islam solves all problems and guarantees peace', 'East or West, Islam is the best', Islamist sloganeers proclaim. Saifuddin, like others of his ilk, is careful to limit himself simply to the level of hollow generalities and hot, but empty, rhetoric. He says nothing at all about all the complicated real-world issues of how the ideal polity that he hankers after would be governed, his claims that Islam provides an ideal blueprint for a model society notwithstanding. Presumably, he knows little about such mundane matters. Little knowledge, it is rightly said, can be a very dangerous thing indeed. -- Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com

The power of peace is greater than the power of violence. Peaceful methods are far more effective than violent methods. Constructive goals can be achieved only through peaceful means, while violent ways lead to destruction and ruin.

I would like to give an example from recent Indian history. The freedom struggle of India started in 1857 and the leaders of that period wanted to achieve freedom by violent methods. This trend continued up to 1919, but the target was not achieved.

Then Mahatma Gandhi entered the freedom struggle in 1919. After studying the situation, he decided to reverse the course of action. He declared that they would continue their freedom struggle, but it would be by a strictly peaceful method. He declared that where previous leaders had been using "bombs" of violence to protest against British rule, they would now use the "bomb" of peace to achieve the same goal. -- Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots.  Almost all of the rich and multi-layered history of the holy city is gone. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades.

Now the actual birthplace of the Prophet Mohamed is facing the bulldozers, with the connivance of Saudi religious authorities whose hardline interpretation of Islam is compelling them to wipe out their own heritage.

According to Dr Angawi - who has dedicated his life to preserving Islam's two holiest cities - as few as 20 structures are left that date back to the lifetime of the Prophet 1,400 years ago and those that remain could be bulldozed at any time. "This is the end of history in Mecca and Medina and the end of their future," said Dr Angawi.

The driving force behind the demolition campaign that has transformed these cities is Wahhabism. This, the austere state faith of Saudi Arabia, was imported by the al-Saud tribal chieftains when they conquered the region in the 1920s. The motive behind the destruction is the Wahhabists' fanatical fear that places of historical and religious interest could give rise to idolatry or polytheism, the worship of multiple and potentially equal gods. -- Daniel Howden

The masochistic urge to swiftly bring the accused to justice without any process whatsoever has manifest itself in recent years in its crudest form. Blasphemy accused and alleged thieves and robbers — including in one harrowing case in September, two teenaged boys in Sialkot — have been beaten to death by a raging mad crowd; others have been burnt alive in Karachi. In certain cases the police too were part of such gross miscarriages of justice, yet few heads rolled. In a country where Islamist terrorists strike with impunity on a daily basis against their Muslim targets, such as Sufi saints’ shrines and mosques, and US drones rain down bombs, often killing innocent people, a certain amount of brutalisation of the public psyche and the urge for revenge have combined to unleash a sinister disorder. The government has all but failed to check the lawlessness. -- Murtaza Razvi

I read a book entitled, ‘Age of Reason’. In earlier times, arguments were conjecture-based but in the present world, arguments can only be based on reason and fact. The acclaimed British philosopher Bertrand Russell quotes the example of the Greek philosopher Aristotle to illustrate the conjecture-based thinking that prevailed in olden days. He writes that women were always given a secondary status in the writings of Aristotle. His argument was that nature itself has accorded secondary status to woman, which he said was proved by the lesser number of teeth they possessed in comparison to man. Russell further writes that Aristotle had married more than once and he could have easily verified the veracity of his conjecture by counting the number of teeth in his wife‟s mouth. Doing so would have made clear to him the falsity of his premise. -- Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

We demand an answer from all those mullas, muftis and qazis who have nothing better to do than pass fatwas which ruin the lives of so many women. We ask you 5 questions and we demand an answer to all of them:

Who are you and what is your authority in passing fatwas? In a secular democracy like India and in a religion that denounces clergy ship, from where do you get the authority to pass dictates which are unConstitutional and unIslamic?

What is the source of illogical, stupid and laughter-evoking fatwas like women should not be riding bicycles, women should not talk loudly, they should not work in male company and without a veil, that women cannot be a judge and that she cannot be talking to her fiancé before marriage and many other much much more ridiculous rulings? Don’t you think twice before you defile a rational, progressive and liberal religion like Islam? Don’t you have an iota of a sense of responsibility? -- Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan

The fatwas that the Dar ul-Ulum, Deoband, India’s largest madrasa, dishes out with distressing regularity may or may not be taken seriously by many Muslims, but there is no doubt that they certainly are by the dominant (largely non-Muslim) media. That these fatwas have a curious have a knack of hogging newspaper headlines might speak more about the media’s own in-built biases, being ever on the prowl for sticks to beat Muslims with, than about the Deoband madrasa itself. But, that aside, the fact remains that not an inconsiderable number of the madrasa’s fatwas, mainly to do with women and marriage, have, in recent years, been greeted with fierce denunciation by increasing numbers of Muslims themselves, and, that too on Islamic grounds. Such Muslim critics, whose numbers are not inconsiderable, contest these fatwas for their alleged faulty arguments and even more faulty conclusions, insisting, based on their own understanding of Islam, that these juristic opinions have no merit at all. -- Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com

An ebullient 55-year-old with a big mane of blond hair, Ms. Abaza has spent a decade campaigning to spare the animals, or at least require more humane slaughtering methods. She has a long way to go.

The scene in Cairo’s working-class Sayyida Zeinab neighborhood Tuesday morning was fairly typical: camels bellowed as blood-soaked butchers wrestled dozens of animals to the ground and slashed their throats for an admiring crowd.

Neighbors leaned out their windows to watch and cheer, or snap cellphone pictures. Little boys daubed their hands in the blood and spattered one another, and teenagers helped remove steaming entrails from the carcasses. Scores of people pressed forward to buy fresh meat for the ritual holiday meal, standing in puddles of clotted gore……

On Monday, one butcher described it this way: “We just throw them on their sides and cut their throats and say ‘Allahu Akbar.’ ” Asked whether the beasts were able to see and hear others being killed, he replied: “Sure, why not?” -- Scott Nelson

Photo: Egyptians gather to watch bulls be slaughtered in accordance with Eid al-Adha tradition at a streetside butchery in the Sayeda Zeinab district of Cairo, Egypt.

Al-Banna became a disciple of Rida and ardently adopted Rida's interpretation of what comprised an Islamic State. Although al-Banna's Islamic State near directly mimicked the Islamic State proposed by salafiya reformism, his gained more popular support and, thus, became the first mass movement for Islam. Al-Banna believed that the spread and creation of a genuine Islamic State could only occur through the banning of Western ideas and influence on Sharia doctrinal laws. Sharia is the code of law derived from the Quran. -- Assad