Tag: Libya

Libya’s Ambassador To UAE: Southeast Asian Muslims Should Embrace Own Unique Cultural Traditions, Resist Arabisation And Still Be Good Muslims

Muslims in Southeast Asia should embrace their unique cultural traditions instead of adopting Arabic customs, according to Libya’s Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Dr Aref Ali Nayed.

“I think that it’s high time that Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei actually appreciated the traditions that have been taught in small schools and villages for several centuries now,” said Dr Nayed, who is also the founder and director of think-tank Kalam Research and Media.

“Why should a Malay give up his way of dressing, or his way of talking or his language in order to somehow prove that he’s more Islamic by borrowing some Arabic words?” he said during an interview with Channel NewsAsia’s Conversation With that aired on Mar 28.

Dr Nayed was in Singapore to deliver a seminar at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute on defeating Islamic State.

Dr Nayed, who has been ranked as one of the top 50 most influential Muslims in the world by Jordanian think-tank The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, made his remarks as the “Arabisation” of Islam and cultural practices in Southeast Asia stir controversy.

In similar comments made recently in an interview with Malaysia’s The Star, the Sultan of Johor last week warned Malays to stick to their own culture instead of imitating Arab trends. The ruler was responding to the tendency for some Malaysian Malays to lean towards Arab culture amid growing conservatism.

NO NEED TO BE ARAB TO BE A GOOD MUSLIM

Dr Nayed – an Islamic studies scholar who has lectured on Islamic theology, logic, and spirituality at universities around the world – also warned against mindlessly accepting religious teachings from Arabic theologians.

He encouraged religious scholars in Southeast Asia to “not only appreciate what they have but to actually foster it and grow it with their own future generations”.

“There is no need to send off kids to some Arab countries. (They) actually teach a flattened version of Islam that is quite foreign to what Islam is actually about,” Dr Nayed added.

While Islamic studies scholars like Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah are doing good work in the UAE, according to Dr Nayed, the ambassador added: “Much of the literature coming off Arabic presses unfortunately has been highly politicised and the theologies have been reduced to a number of principles that are actually quite dangerous.”

When asked if local cultures are standing in the way of achieving the belief of a universality of Islam, Dr Nayed dismissed the idea.

To be a good Muslim, he said: “One has to first be a good Singaporean Muslim or a Malay Muslim or a good Indonesian Muslim.

“Only then can you be a representative of the universal Islam. So respecting your locality does not mean giving up on the universality.”

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

March 27, 2017
Don’t Be Fooled, Trump’s New Muslim Ban Is Still Illegal

President Trump’s executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries experienced nearly universal defeat in the federal courts. On Monday, he issued a revised version of that order, but it still suffers from a fundamental, and fatal, flaw: It constitutes unlawful religious discrimination.

On the surface, this revised order looks different from the first version. It explicitly exempts Iraq from the travel ban, thus reducing the number of affected countries to six, as well as lawful permanent residents (that is, green card holders) and people who have visas. It no longer categorically bars Syrian refugees or includes a religious test to determine which refugees may enter the country. And in a marked departure from the earlier order, it goes into effect in 10 days, so that the chaos that unfolded in airports around the world when the January order became effective presumably won’t happen again.

These changes are, no doubt, intended to address the due process concerns that led the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to affirm a lower-court ruling that put a hold on part of the original order. But while these changes are important, they do not fix the core problem with the executive order: The administration is waging an all-out assault on Islam and Muslims.

That’s because anti-Muslim bias and bigotry that characterized the original travel ban remain in this revised version. The order is still limited to only Muslim-majority countries: namely, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Residents of those countries — and only those countries — will be severely restricted in their ability to travel into the United States for 90 days. Left off are the predominately Christian countries that the State Department lists as “Terrorist Safe Havens” like Colombia, the Philippines and Venezuela.

The revised order also continues to traffic in bigoted and largely false perceptions: By requiring the government to compile occurrences of “honor killings” by immigrants, it gives official recognition to an inflammatory and misleading trope of Islam that is perpetuated by anti-Muslim hate groups.

President Trump has not been subtle in his intentions. We need look no further than his own words to figure them out. On the campaign trail, he constantly conflated the vast majority of peaceful Muslims with the small handful of violent Muslims.

After the Paris attacks in November 2015, Mr. Trump said that “we’re going to have no choice” but to close some mosques in the United States, where “some really bad things are happening.” The next month, after the attack in San Bernardino, Calif., he called for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” and released a factually dubious statement that “large segments of the Muslim population” have “great hatred towards Americans” and favor Shariah law. Astonishingly, that statement is still posted on Mr. Trump’s website.

In December, when a reporter asked whether he had reconsidered his stance on Islam, President-elect Trump replied: “You know my plans. All along, I’ve been proven to be right.” This dark and wholly unsubstantiated worldview about Islam and the American Muslim community is shared by several of the president’s senior aides and advisers.

Let’s be clear: This revised order is a Muslim ban. All the countries he has excluded are more than 90 percent Muslim. Three of them — Iran, Somalia and Yemen — are more than 99 percent Muslim. Even though Mr. Trump tailored his order to survive legal challenges, as his former adviser Rudolph Giuliani conceded on national television, his objective is clearly to exclude Muslims.

The Trump administration argues that the ban protects the country. Yet by excluding Iraq from the order, Mr. Trump has cleared travel from one of the two countries from which Islamic State terrorists operates. Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security concluded last month that “country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity.” Former national security officials from Democratic and Republican administrations have made clear that the January order does not make our country safer. Instead, the bigotry that Mr. Trump spews at news conferences and on Twitter have been a boon for terrorists’ recruitment efforts.

The twisted worldview does not match reality. Muslims have been part of America for centuries, since the first slave ships arrived in the 17th century. Today, Muslims represent 1 percent of the United States population: They are our teachers, doctors, neighbors and co-workers.

American Muslims will suffer a particular harm from this executive order: Those who have ties to the banned countries won’t be able to see their family members and close friends. American Muslims will also be deprived of the instruction from the leading Islamic scholars who are from those countries.

Thousands of Muslim men and women serve in the armed forces; many have given their lives defending our nation and our ideals. They contribute to the diversity that has always been our nation’s pride and strength. President George W. Bush paid tribute to this in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks when he said, “There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know — that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion.”

President Trump and his top advisers would be wise to listen to President Bush. The Muslim ban and President Trump’s relentless attacks on Islam are not just an assault on thousands of patriotic, innocent Americans — they violate our Constitution and our most fundamental American values and beliefs.

Source: NYTimes

March 7, 2017
IS Militants In Libya Burn Musical Instruments Seized From Public

The Islamic State (Isis) propaganda machine has published photos of its militants in Libya burning musical instruments they said were confiscated in line with the radical group’s interpretation of Sharia law.

Black-clad gunmen are seen setting fire to a pile of drums, brass and woodwind instruments at a countryside location and then watching the fire burning in images posted online by an Isis media branch.

An accompanying message claimed the instrument-burning took place in eastern Libya, possibly near the city of Derna.

Under the jihadi group’s rules, instrumental music is banned as well as what it claims are other un-Islamic activities such as smoking and drinking alcohol.

In September, it was reported that Isis had imposed a new school curriculum in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, banning art and music as well as all classes on history, literature and Christianity.

Libya has been embroiled in fighting since the overthrow of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Battling for control of the country currently involves pro-government forces, Libya Dawn, an umbrella group including radical and moderate Islamists, and Isis local offshoots that recently infiltrated several coastal cities.

The group’s expansion into the Mediterranean country has sparked international alarm.

Libya’s Foreign Minister Mohammed al Dairi has called for an emergency session of the UN Security Council to lift an arms embargo and allow his government to fight back at Isis.

Neighbouring Egypt has been conducting airstrikes against jihadist positions this week, after a gruesome online video depicting Isis militants beheading 21 Coptic Christians on a beach near Tripoli was posted online.

Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk

February 20, 2015