Category: Agama

  • “Halal” Butcher in Switzerland Sold Pork to Muslims for 3 Years

    “Halal” Butcher in Switzerland Sold Pork to Muslims for 3 Years

    A “halal” butcher has been taken to court after selling pork to Muslim customers for over three years.

    According to Morocco World News, the Swiss butcher reportedly sold 3.1 tons of pork to his Muslim customers, telling them it was halal and trying to pass it off as calf meat.

    Upon inspection of his facility, it was discovered that what he was selling as calf meat looked nothing like it should.

    “If customers had known it was pork, they would not have bought it because Islam forbids the consumption of this type of meat,” the prosecutor handling the case said.

    Now, the man is facing six months of jail time and is being fined 18,000 Swiss francs, which equates to roughly £11,880.

    He was charged with “fraud and misrepresentation.”

    As Morocco News noted, the butcher was engaging in two-fold deception in selling pork as if it were veal.

    Firstly, Muslims were buying and consuming pork, which is against their religion.

    Secondly, he was making higher profits since pork is cheaper than calf meat.

     

    Source: www.5pillarz.com

  • Saudi Arabia Keluar Fatwa Untuk Jelaskan Mengapa Islam Harus Tolak IS

    Saudi Arabia Keluar Fatwa Untuk Jelaskan Mengapa Islam Harus Tolak IS

    RIYADH: Kepimpinan kanan ulama Arab Saudi telah mengeluarkan fatwa baru yang mengisytiharkan pengganasan sebagai “jenayah kejam” di bawah undang-undang syariah – yang merupakan satu lagi komitmen kerajaan Saudi untuk menolak IS dan kekejaman militan itu kononnya sebagai perjuangan atas nama Islam.

    “Pengganasan adalah bertentangan dengan tujuan agama Islam, iaitu membawa rahmat di seluruh dunia.

    “Pengganasan tidak ada kaitannya dengan Islam dan merupakan ideologi yang menyimpang.

    “Pengganasan tidak lebih daripada hanya kerosakan dan jenayah yang ditolak oleh undang-undang syariah dan akal budi,” kata para ulama dalam kenyataan yang dilaporkan Saudi Press Agency, seperti yang ditukil akhbar The Guardian.

    Sebarang Muslim yang berfikir bahawa jihad bermakna menyertai kumpulan pengganas “merupakan golongan yang bodoh dan tersesat,” tambah kumpulan ulama itu.

    Kewaspadaan Arab Saudi tentang militan IS kini semakin kuat sejak beberapa bulan kebelakangan ini.

    Raja Abdullah telah menggesa majlis ulama – badan agama negara itu – supaya bergerak lebih cepat mengutuk pengganasan dan mengurangkan tarikan kepada IS selepas Arab Saudi dan sembilan negara Arab lain menyertai perikatan antarabangsa yang dipimpin Amerika Syarikat untuk memerangi IS di Iraq dan Syria.

    Putera Mohammed bin Nayef, Menteri Dalam Negeri Arab Saudi, digambarkan di Riyadh sebagai penggerak utama di sebalik strategi dengan keselamatan dalam negeri dan dasar serantau diselaraskan dengan lebih berkesan bagi menangani IS.

    Februari lalu, Arab Saudi telah memerintahkan hukuman penjara bagi orang yang menyokong pertubuhan pengganas atau membuat perjalanan ke Syria atau Iraq bagi menyertai IS.

    Awal September lalu, 88 orang telah diberkas kerana menyokong Al-Qaeda dan pemimpin IS, Abu Bakar al-Bagdadi.

    Rakyat Arab Saudi kini membentuk kontinjen kedua terbesar pejuang Arab yang berjuang bersama IS.

    Arab Saudi sebelum ini dikejutkan dengan kritikan bahawa negara itu menyokong IS walaupun para pengamat berkata sokongan kewangan yang diberikan Arab Saudi adalah bagi kumpulan Islam yang menentang Presiden Syria, Encik Bashar al-Assad.

    Namun beberapa pihak berkata bantuan itu akhirnya mengalir kepada kumpulan yang dikaitkan dengan Al-Qaeda dan IS.

    Selepas menewaskan Al-Qaeda dalam kempen anti keganasan pada 2004, kerajaan Arab Saudi bimbang dengan kesan rakyat Arab Saudi yang pulang selepas berjuang di Syria dan Iraq.

    Sementara itu, Mufti Besar Arab Saudi, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh, memberi amaran bahawa musuh Islam kini menggunakan laman web sosial seperti Twitter untuk menyebarkan perkara palsu tentang Islam selain menyerang penganutnya.

    Portal berita Arab News melaporkan Sheikh Abdul Aziz meminta penduduk Arab Saudi yang menggunakan Twitter supaya berfikir terlebih dahulu sebelum menyiarkan apa-apa di akaun mereka.

    Beliau menggesa penduduk Arab Saudi agar memastikan apa yang disiarkan di akaun mereka akan menjaga kepentingan negara dan tidak memburukkan pemerintah negara ini.

    “Mereka yang memburukkan Islam tanpa malu tidak mempunyai sebarang pegangan dan tidak takut kepada Tuhan,” katanya dalam satu rancangan televisyen.

    Beliau berkata, Twitter menjadi laman web yang mempromosikan pelbagai jenis “kejahatan dan kerosakan”.

    “Penggunaan yang baik adalah apabila orang ramai yang menggunakan laman web itu mendapat faedah, namun sebaliknya mereka menggunakannya bagi perkara bukan-bukan,” jelasnya. – Agensi berita.


    “Pengganasan adalah bertentangan dengan tujuan agama Islam, iaitu membawa rahmat di seluruh dunia. Pengganasan tidak ada kaitannya dengan Islam dan merupakan ideologi yang menyimpang.”

    – Fatwa kepimpinan kanan ulama Arab Saudi.

     

    Source: www.beritaharian.sg

  • Yusuf Islam’s Return to Performing Music Received Criticism From Some Muslims

    Yusuf Islam’s Return to Performing Music Received Criticism From Some Muslims

    Yusuf Islam – formerly known as Cat Stevens – has rarely been seen on stage since he converted to Islam in 1977. In recent years, however, he has returned to live performing and, with new album Tell ‘Em I’m Gone out last month, Yusuf played two sold-out gigs in London this week as part of his European tour.

    The British musician has now revealed that his decision to start producing and performing music again led to criticism from some Muslims.

    “I was getting criticism from the Muslim community: why are you picking up a guitar again? What’s happening to you?” the 66-year-old said in an interview with AFP.

    “I say: listen to me, this is part of Islamic civilisation, we have lost our contact with it, we lost our vibrant approach to life and to culture.”

    Yusuf, who is performing songs from the new album, as well as classics such as Wild World, Moonshadow and Peace Train from his 1960s and 1970s heyday on the tour, said of his dual identity: “I’m a mirror glass for the Muslims as well as the Western world, which looks at me in a slightly different way, but they are looking in the same mirror.”

    Yusuf will also return to the United States for his first tour there in 35 years. It comes 10 years after he was banned from the country after his name appeared on a no-fly list – a fact he blamed on mistaken identification.

    “I feel very welcome now,” he said and described his inauguration into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a “significant moment where they kind of remembered me”.

    “I think it’s [the tour] going to be pretty good, I’m hoping,” he said.

    “One song I do is The First Cut is the Deepest. I try to remind people I wrote that song, not Rod Stewart.” Yusuf continued.

    When he first converted to Islam in 1977, Yusuf hung up his guitar to dedicate himself to philanthropic and educational work.

    He attracted controversy in 1989 when he defended the fatwa issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calling for Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie for blasphemy. He later dismissed his remarks as in bad taste, but there are many who still reproach him for not apologising.

    After his US experience, two British newspapers alleged that he was involved in terrorism. Yusuf successfully sued them for libel, but the whole experience has left its mark.

    “It’s always on the knife’s edge as far as I am concerned,” he said of his relationship with the media. “I can never quite trust anybody anymore.”

    Everyone, however, is welcome to come and see him perform live. “People who want to remember me as Cat Stevens – welcome. Those who want me as Yusuf, you’re here,” he said.

     

    Source:  www.telegraph.co.uk

  • Sisters In Islam:  Malaysia Not A Theocratic Dictatorship

    Sisters In Islam: Malaysia Not A Theocratic Dictatorship

    KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 — Women’s advocacy group Sisters in Islam (SIS) has told minister Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom that Malaysia is a democracy and not a theocratic dictatorship.

    The Muslim women’s rights NGO also said shariah laws are man-made and therefore not infallible, pointing out that the recent court challenges by SIS against a fatwa and by a group of Muslim transgender men against a state shariah law prohibiting cross-dressing were challenges to the “unjust and inefficient” Islamic legal system in Malaysia.

    “We would like to remind the minister that Malaysia is a democratic country, not a theocratic dictatorship,” Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, a member of SIS’ board of directors, told Malay Mail Online.

    “Our Federal Constitution guarantees the fundamental liberties of every citizen including Muslims. The rule of law applies to everyone, and everyone has a right to seek redress in the courts if they feel they have been unfairly treated,” she added.

    SIS also expressed alarm at the call by Jamil Khir, who is the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Islamic affairs, for all Muslims to defend their faith from liberal ideologies “by any method”.

    “Does this mean he is giving the go-ahead for anyone to take vigilante action against those the minister deems un-Islamic, including violence? Does this mean that should anyone physically attack such persons, the state will take no action against them?” Marina asked.

    Jamil Khir said yesterday that in a “new wave” of assault, Muslim transgenders and SIS are colluding with Islam’s enemies to put its religious institutions on trial in a secular court.

    The minister was responding to two recent court challenges where state Islamic authorities were cast into a defensive role, with one initiated by SIS at the High Court here against a Selangor religious edict, or fatwa, declaring their organisation and its members “deviants”.

    The other was a separate case mounted by a group of transgender men who were convicted of cross-dressing under the Negri Sembilan state shariah law, which they won at the Court of Appeal Friday.

    A three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal had unanimously ruled Section 66 of the Negri Sembilan Syariah Criminal Enactment 1992 to be unconstitutional as it violated the three Muslim men’s right to freedom of expression.

    Jamil Khir said Islamic institutions like the state Islamic councils must work together to face “this new wave against Islam”, claiming that there is an “agenda” outside the country’s predominant religion aiming to twist the faith of Muslims.

    Malaysia’s religious authorities have long derided liberalism and pluralism, with Friday sermons nationwide claiming a conspiracy by “enemies of Islam” to manipulate Muslims through ideas like secularism, socialism, feminism and positivism, in addition to the two.

     

    Source: www.themalaymailonline.com

  • Leader Of The Islamic State Wounded In US-led Air Strike

    Leader Of The Islamic State Wounded In US-led Air Strike

    The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was “critically wounded” when a U.S.-led air strike targeted the western Iraqi border town of al-Qaim, tribal sources told Al Arabiya News Channel on Saturday.

    U.S. Central Command confirmed in a statement that U.S.-led air strikes targeted ISIS leaders near their northern Iraqi hub of Mosul late Friday, without confirming whether Baghdadi was killed, AFP reported.

    “This strike demonstrates the pressure we continue to place on the ISIL [ISIS] terrorist network and the group’s increasingly limited freedom to maneuver, communicate and command,” U.S. Central Command said.

    Anbar province MP Mohammad al-Karbuli told Al Arabiya News Channel that coalition aircraft had targeted a gathering of ISIS leaders in al-Qaim that led to the killing of tens of people and wounded many more.

    Karbuli said chaos ensued the air raid with ISIS members scrambling to transport their wounded to al-Qaim hospital which was overwhelmed with the number of patients.

    Reuters news agency quoted two witnesses as saying an air strike targeted a house where senior ISIS officers were meeting, near al-Qaim.

    The witnesses said ISIS fighters had cleared a hospital so that their wounded could be treated. ISIS fighters used loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood, the witnesses said.

    The agency also quoted residents as saying there were unconfirmed reports that ISIS’ local leader in the western Iraqi province of Anbar and his deputy were killed.

     

    Source: http://english.alarabiya.net