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  • Commentary: Why ISIS Is Attacking Muslims

    Commentary: Why ISIS Is Attacking Muslims

    Last month, Islamic State or ISIS claimed responsibility for a spate of high-profile attacks in cities such as Istanbul, Dhaka, Baghdad and Medina. Unlike previous targets such as Brussels and Paris, the recent attacks were squarely aimed at Muslim-majority countries.

    With these attacks claiming the lives of Muslims and occurring in the holy month of Ramadan, a new debate has ensued: Is ISIS really ‘Islamic’ as it declares itself to be? Or has ISIS, in fact, revealed much of its strategies, goals – and ultimately, how its brand of extremism can and should be countered?

    Targeting Muslims in the first instance may be puzzling to many. If ISIS hopes to draw more Muslims into its cosmic struggle to uphold the caliphate, killing fellow Muslims seems an error in strategy. Several commentators have been quick to highlight that this shows that ISIS is not Islamic and has nothing to do with Islam.

    Such a defensive reaction is not without basis. Islam, after all, has a well-developed tradition that puts universally-held values such as peace, mercy and compassion at the heart of its teaching. These ethical principles have guided the conduct of a large majority of Muslims over the last 1,400 years.

    And they continue to shape the moderate form of Islam as upheld by transmitters of the religious tradition to this day. The condemnation of ISIS by thousands of prominent Muslim scholars – including the world’s largest Muslim organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama of Indonesia – represents this strand of mainstream Islam.

    A makeshift memorial to Ataturk airport employees who were killed in Istanbul on June 28. (Photo: AFP)

    But addressing the threat of ISIS may require more than the mere assertion that ISIS is not Islamic.

    It is crucial to understand why ISIS is able to recruit individuals and draw support and sympathy from some Muslims. In part it has to do with non-religious factors. These may include the sense of frustration at the unresolved political quagmire in the Muslim world, and the need for adventure among socially-disconnected and alienated youths.

    But some factors may lie in the ability of ISIS to latch onto pre-existing narratives located within the Muslim religious imagination. It is the latter that requires Muslims to take serious stock of how Islam has been taught, understood and socialised in certain circles.

    JIHAD AND THE ABUSE OF TRADITION

    One aspect that requires critical attention is the utilisation of the religious tradition by ISIS. Firstly, ISIS resurrects medieval rulings and opinions of past scholars, de-contextualises and fossilises them.

    One example is ISIS leader al-Baghdadi’s call for Muslims to perform the ‘hijrah’ (migration) “from wherever you are to the Islamic State, from dar-ul-kufr (land of the infidels) to dar-ul-Islam (land of Islam)”. This call, issued in the ISIS newsletter Dabiq, is reminiscent of a fatwa issued by a 16th century jurist, al-Wansharisi, who declared that it is obligatory for Muslims to migrate to Muslim-controlled regions – but if they had no choice but to reside in non-Muslim lands, then they must not be in solidarity with non-Muslims and must engage in jihad (struggle).

    ISIS supporters who perpetrated the Paris attacks on Nov 13, 2015, which killed at  least 129 people, were EU citizens. (Photo: Reuters)

    ISIS, however, has no regard for context: Al-Wansharisi wrote in a milieu of empires, where Christian-Muslim rivalry shaped the religious imagination soon after the Muslims had lost the Iberian Peninsula to Christian conquests. Nor does ISIS highlight that the vast majority of the ulama today have rejected this paradigm of thought by declaring it a remnant of the past.

    In 1935 in Banjarmasin, Indonesia, the Nahdlatul Ulama declared that Muslims were no longer obliged to establish the ‘daulah islamiyyah’ (Islamic state) but instead, it was incumbent upon them to uphold the paradigm of the pluralistic nation-state, that is, ‘al-jumhuriyah al-Indonisiyah (the Indonesian state).

    EXPLOITING THE APOCALYPSE

    Secondly, ISIS latches on to the apocalyptic imagination of some Muslims. It is not surprising that its English-language propaganda magazine was named Dabiq – a location in Syria where a cosmic battle between Muslim and anti-Muslim forces has been prophesied, as recorded in medieval apocalyptic writings.

    In fact, end-time prophecies are a consistent feature in the preaching of many contemporary extremist movements. When the Americans were invading Afghanistan in 2001, several Muslims saw the Taliban as the ‘black flag army’ that would usher in the coming of the ‘Mahdi’ (end-time messiah in Muslim theology) who would defeat the ‘Dajjal’ (antichrist).

    Such imageries continue to inform Muslims who cannot make sense of geo-political conflicts happening in the Middle East. Popular preachers fill the gap through eschatological explanations. The strategists in ISIS are well aware of this, and it is no coincidence that the black flag was hoisted as a symbol.

    What this shows is that political turmoil allows for certain religious imagination to be evoked. This may explain why ISIS does not discriminate between Muslim and non-Muslim targets.

    In particular, a Muslim country governed by legal and political institutions such as parliamentary democracy, is painted as un-Islamic. Muslims who reside in and support such institutions are cast as collaborators of a ‘taghut’ (idolatrous) system. They are therefore legitimate targets, including the Saudi government for being a close ally of the United States; hence, the attack in Medina is not unthinkable.

    In Medina, at least 4 people were killed in a July 4 suicide bombing near the Prophet’s Mosque, one of the holiest places in Islam. (Photo: Reuters)

    For ISIS, undermining stability is a primary goal for chaos to reign and an Islamic State to finally emerge.

    Typically, a terror attack will be followed by panic, fear and anger. This will create a climate of anxiety where mutual suspicion envelops societal relationship. Non-Muslims may be driven to accuse Muslims of being collectively responsible, as Muslims are put on the defensive to constantly deny that these acts of terror have anything to do with them or their religion.

    This works to the advantage of the extremist agenda. Mutual suspicion will often lead to further distancing and discriminatory practices. They heighten the existing ‘siege-mentality’ in some Muslims, making them susceptible to the view that that the world is really ‘against Muslims/Islam’ and that Muslims have to defend their dignity.

    Groups like ISIS then provide ready platforms for disgruntled Muslims to take their sentiments to their violent conclusion.

    DEMONISING ‘DEVIANTS’ FROM ISLAM

    Thirdly, ISIS feeds on sectarian thinking. Those who are puzzled by ISIS’ attacks on fellow Muslims ignore two important facts: One, Muslim history is full of examples of sectarian conflicts that started soon after the death of Prophet Muhammad and, two, the main targets of ISIS are often the Shi’a and other Muslim minorities who are considered as deviants or heretics.

    The major attack in Baghdad recently that killed nearly 300 was aimed at the Shi’a community. In fact, Dabiq’s thirteenth issue released early this year was devoted to denouncing the ‘Rafidah’ – a pejorative term used on the Shi’a who were said to have originated from Abdullah ibn Saba’, a Jewish convert to Islam in 7th century who intended to divide the Muslim community.

    This Iraqi man’s sons were killed in a suicide bombing that ripped through Baghdad’s shopping district of Karrada on July 3. (Photo: AFP)

    Again, the use of tradition to propagate myths that inform sectarian thinking – albeit fabricated, but widely circulated in certain anti-Shi’a Wahhabi circles – is an unmistakable strategy employed by ISIS.

    Here, the nexus between sectarian attitudes such as ‘takfir’ (excommunication or declaring someone out of Islam) and extremism requires serious attention. This tendency is often seen in puritanical forms of Islam, such as Wahhabism.

    Several scholars have noted the similarities between the conduct of ISIS – such as beheading, keeping slaves and its anti-Shi’a and anti-Sufi (mystical branch within Islam) attitudes – with the ideas promoted within Wahhabism. Hence, ISIS’ destruction of historical sites, such as the purported tomb of Prophet Jonah in Mosul, Iraq last year, was not surprising – it was equivalent to the destruction of notable early Muslims’ tombs and historical sites in Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism is the country’s official creed.

    Yet, ISIS cannot simply be identified as Wahhabism, even if they share many commonalities in thinking. Far more important, and urgent, is to identify the narratives employed that generate supremacist attitudes, divisive behaviour and cultish adherence to an in-group that excludes and demonises the ‘others’.

    RAMADAN AND JIHAD

    Fourthly, violence is not something that is foreign to the ISIS worldview which promotes Muslim ‘chivalry’ in its fight to implement what it considers to be the only legitimate form of governance.

    In fact, ISIS once again employs tradition to spur Muslims to fight in the month of Ramadan. Al Fatihin, a recently launched newsletter meant for the Malay-speaking world, carries the message for jihad during Ramadan by Abu Hamza Muhajir, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in 2010.

    For Muslims, Ramadan is indeed a month for jihad. This jihad, however, is understood as a struggle against base desires through acts of devotion such as fasting and alms-giving. But for ISIS, jihad is understood in its distorted form of attacking and killing the supposed enemies of Islam.

    Displaced children who fled from ISIS violence receive free food during Ramadan at a restaurant in Baghdad, Iraq (Photo: Reuters)

    ISIS would point to the fact that the first battle that Muslims engaged with and led by Prophet Muhammad was the Battle of Badr, which took place in the month of Ramadan in 624 CE. Although the Muslims were not the aggressors and were defending Medina from the Meccan attack, ISIS’ invoking of jihad in Ramadan was a calculated move.

    The Battle of Badr ended with a Muslim victory, despite being outnumbered – hence, it serves ISIS’ propaganda to inflame radicalised Muslims and spur them to launch attacks, with the promise of victory and the rewards of Paradise.

    GOING BEYOND RHETORIC, TO CRITICAL THOUGHT

    It is clear that dismissing ISIS as “nothing to do with Islam” may not address the lure that ISIS has for some Muslims. What is needed is a deep and critical understanding of Muslim history, and how certain aspects of the tradition are being utilised, albeit in distorted ways. This may explain the apparent paradox: Why ISIS has been able to attract certain Muslims while, at the same time, targeting fellow Muslims.

    Knowing this will compel Muslims to go beyond making rhetorical statements, and to begin focusing on the long-needed reform of Muslim thought.

    As urged by Professor Ebrahim Moosa when he spoke in Singapore at a conference in April, the key to dealing with extremism is to engage with the tradition in a critical way. Tradition is not static; it evolves and new traditions can emerge. Muhammad Qasim Zaman in his book, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age, highlighted this evolving nature of tradition, including the views of those whom we consider as the gatekeepers of tradition. While Islam as a faith remains constant, its application and understanding are diverse and often competing.

    Hence, a way to combat extremism in Muslim circles is to firstly familiarise Muslims with the diversity within Islam and the evolving nature of tradition. Second is to allow room for the scrutiny of Muslim thought to ensure that extremist ideas do not get shielded and passed off as “the Islamic view”, and therefore, beyond reproach.

    Criticising religious ideas is not equivalent to undermining religion as extremists would have us believe. Populating the religious discourse with competing ideas may be a good way to demonstrate the diversity in religious thought that can allow good ideas to trump bad ideas.

    One way to combat extremism is to familiarise Muslims with the diversity within Islam, says the writer. (Photo: AFP)

    Ultimately, diversity in religious discourse will demonstrate how religion can be an inspiration for peace and harmony, as well as a tool for violence and domination. Muslims will then be called to make a decision to uphold one and isolate the other.

    Given that there are enough resources within the vast reservoir of Muslim tradition to promote peaceful co-existence and acceptance of diversity, there is hope that the vast majority of Muslims will remain moderate and tolerant. This, however, will require firm leadership and a conducive political climate that is able to keep extremism in check while ensuring that voices of reason prevail.

     

    Source: ChannelNewsAsia

  • After Attacks On Muslims, Many Ask: Where’s The Global Outrage

    After Attacks On Muslims, Many Ask: Where’s The Global Outrage

    In recent days, jihadists killed 41 people at Istanbul’s bustling, shiny airport; 22 at a cafe in Bangladesh; and at least 250 celebrating the final days of Ramadan in Baghdad. Then Islamic State (IS) attacked, again, with bombings in three cities in Saudi Arabia.

    By Tuesday, Mr Michel Kilo, a Syrian dissident, was leaning wearily over his coffee at a Left Bank cafe, wondering: Where was the global outrage? Where was the outpouring that came after the same terrorist groups unleashed horror in Brussels and here in Paris? In a supposedly globalised world, do non-whites, non-Christians and non-Westerners count as fully human?

    “All this crazy violence has a goal,” said Mr Kilo, who is Christian: To create a backlash against Muslims, divide societies and “make Sunnis feel that no matter what happens, they don’t have any other option”.

    This is not the first time that the West seems to have shrugged off massacres in predominantly Muslim countries. But the relative indifference after so many deaths caused by the very groups that have plagued the West is more than a matter of hurt feelings.

    One of the primary goals of IS and other radical Islamist groups is to drive a wedge between Sunni Muslims and the wider world, to fuel alienation as a recruiting tool. And when that world appears to show less empathy for the victims of attacks in Muslim nations, who have borne the brunt of IS’ massacres and predatory rule, it seems to prove their point.

    “Why isn’t #PrayForIraq trending?” Mr Razan Hasan of Baghdad posted on Twitter. “Oh yeah no one cares about us.”

    Ms Hira Saeed of Ottawa asked on Twitter why Facebook had not activated its Safety Check feature after recent attacks as it did for Brussels, Paris and Orlando, and why social media had not been similarly filled with the flags of Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq. “The hypocrisy in the Western world is strong,” she wrote.

    The global mood increasingly feels like one of atavism, of retreat into narrower identities of nation, politics or sect, with Britain voting to leave the European Union and many Americans supporting the nativist presidential campaign of Mr Donald Trump.

    The violence feeds a growing impulse among many in the West to fear Muslims and Arabs, which has already prompted a political crisis over immigration that, in turn, has buttressed extremists’ goals. Europe is convulsing over a movement to reject refugees from Syria and Iraq, who are themselves fleeing violence by jihadists and their own governments.

    It is in Syria and Iraq that IS has established its so-called caliphate, ruling overwhelmingly Muslim populations with the threat of gruesome violence. The group has killed Muslims in those countries by the thousands, by far the largest share of its victims.

    When IS militants mowed down cafe-goers in Paris in November, people across the world adorned public landmarks and their private Facebook pages with the French flag — not just in Europe and the United States, but also, with an empathy born of experience, in Syria and Iraq.

    Over the past week, Facebook activated its Safety Check feature, which allows people near a disaster to mark themselves safe, only after the attack on the Istanbul airport.

    The flags of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Bangladesh have not been widely projected on landmarks or adopted as profile pictures. (Photographs on social media showed that in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of Europe’s two majority-Muslim countries, the Turkish flag was beamed onto a bridge in Mostar, the scene of sectarian killings in the 1990s.) Some wonder if part of the reason is that three of those flags bear Islamic symbols or slogans.

    “More deaths in Iraq in the last week than Paris and Orlando combined but nobody is changing their profile pics, building colours, etc,” Mr Kareem Rahaman wrote on Twitter.

    There are some understandable reasons for the differing reactions. People typically identify more closely with places and cultures that are familiar to them. With Iraq, there is also a degree of fatigue, and a feeling that a bombing there is less surprising than one in Europe.

    Deadly attacks have been a constant in Iraq after years of American occupation, followed by a sectarian war in which Sunni and Shia militias slaughtered civilians of the opposite sect. Still, while terrorist attacks in Europe may feel more surprising to the West — though they have become all too common there, too — that does not explain the relative indifference to attacks in Istanbul, Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh.

    “That’s what happens in Iraq,” Mr Sajad Jiyad, a researcher in Iraq who rushed to the scene of the Baghdad bombing and found that one of his friends had died there, wrote on his own blog. “Deaths become just statistics, and the frequency of attacks means the shock doesn’t register as it would elsewhere, or that you have enough time to feel sad or grieve.”

    In the Muslim world, the partly sectarian nature of some conflicts shades people’s reactions, producing a kind of internal sympathy gap. People from one sect or political group often discount or excuse casualties from another.

    In Iraq, the IS took root within an insurgency against the country’s Shia-led government, and Shia militias fighting it have been accused of brutality as well. In Syria, it is just one menace; many more Syrians have been killed by the government’s attacks on areas held by Sunni insurgents, including rebel groups opposed to IS.

    Mr Jiyad added that IS was “hoping to incite a reaction and a spiral into endless violence”, and that Iraqis played into that when they mourned more for their own sect than for others.

    In the West, though, there is a tendency in certain quarters, legitimised by some politicians, to conflate extremist Islamist militants with the Muslim societies that are often their primary victims, or to dismiss Muslim countries as inherently violent.

    “Either Iraqi blood is too cheap or murder is normalised,” Mr Sayed Saleh Qazwini, an Islamic educator in Michigan, wrote on Twitter.

    Mr Kilo, who spent years in the prisons of the Syrian government and opposes both it and the IS, said his life in Paris had changed since November. Speaking Arabic is now suspect. He sees fear in French people’s eyes when they see Syrians.

    “I’m afraid, too,” he said. “Someone could blow himself up anytime.”

    He has written an article that will be published in the newspaper Al Araby Al Jadeed, titled The Curse Of Syria.

    The failure of empathy is broader than IS, he said; it extends to the international community’s unwillingness or inability to stop the slaughter of the Syrian civil war, which began with protests for political change.

    “If we lose all humanity,” said Mr Kilo, “if you allow the slaughter of a nation for 5½ years, after all the leaders of the international community declared the right of these people to revolt against their government, then expect Islamic State — and many other Islamic States in other forms and shapes.”

     

    Source: TODAY Online

  • Hungry And Parched, Muslim Converts Find Their First Ramadan The Hardest

    Hungry And Parched, Muslim Converts Find Their First Ramadan The Hardest

    Half an hour to go before the ceremony, Hilda Bondoc and Norma Cachola sat quietly among a group of happily chatting women. There was discernible tension in the air, evidenced by Ms Cachola’s tightly folded arms and Ms Bondoc’s repeated dabbing of sweat off her face.

    When I approached to greet the two ladies in their 30s, they managed only terse smiles.

    The two Filipinas had turned up at about 10am to meet their friends, dressed meticulously in baju kurung and tudung. Every Sunday, they would gather here at Darul Arqam, near the Malay cultural hub of Geylang Serai. The nondescript, three-storey white building is home to the Muslim Converts’ Association (MCAS), which provides free Islamic classes in various languages, including Tagalog. Ms Bondoc and Ms Cachola are students of the beginners’ course on Islam.

    I checked the time – just five minutes more before the clock struck 11am. It was almost time. The pair broke away from the group to wait on a bench outside the function room. “Nervous?” I asked. “A bit,” Ms Bondoc replied, while Ms Cachola gave another nervous smile.

    Ms Bondoc has been a domestic worker in Singapore for seven years, and Ms Cachola, nine. The cause of their jitters this sweltering Sunday morning: They would be renouncing their faiths and officially declaring themselves Muslims in a conversion ceremony.

    I had asked for permission to witness the rather intimate affair. It almost felt like watching a marriage solemnisation take place – with a registration officer guiding the pair and their two witnesses to endorse official documents in the presence of friends and family, and the recitation of the Shahadah – Declaration of Faith – in Arabic. Both women repeated it a few times to get it right.

    For the past seven years, the number of Muslim conversions administered in Singapore has stayed fairly consistent at between 600 and 700 a year. More than half of these involve foreigners, some of whom travelled to Singapore just to get converted. The reason for this, according to MCAS deputy manager Iskandar Yuen Abdullah, is Singapore’s unique system.

    “The process that we have in place is a very holistic approach. We offer the understanding of Islam, we offer them social network opportunities, and then we have a learning path from foundation courses to the advanced,” he said.

    “They also receive an official card at the end of the conversion to show that they’re Muslim, so that there will be no disputes or arguments down the road. It’s unique (to Singapore),” he added.

    DEALING WITH “UNEASY” BOSSES

    Mr Iskander revealed that Filipinos form a large share of the foreigners who convert here. MCAS began to notice a growing number of Filipino domestic workers visiting Darul Arqam a couple of years ago. To help these newbies grasp the teachings of Islam, they convinced Dr Siti Maryam, an experienced educator in Islamic studies, to conduct classes in Tagalog.

    Dr Maryam was born in the 1970s into a Muslim family in Catabato City in southern Philippines, where most of the population is Muslim. As we spoke about her “girls”,  the childless trained lawyer oozed motherly warmth. “The Filipinos can speak English, but there are certain things that are better to learn in our own vernacular,” she said.

    The OFWs – overseas Filipino workers – are a tight-knit bunch and they look after and influence one another. That, Dr Maryam said, is perhaps why there is growing interest in Islam among them. “A simple thing that I can do is to share the knowledge I have, because sometimes it’s very negative in the media,” she said. “(The religion) is given a very different colour.”

    Besides being a teacher, Dr Maryam sometimes plays the role of a counsellor. Many of her students get into problems with employers who feel uneasy with their interest in Islam. Some bosses even threaten to terminate their contracts and send them home.

    “Don’t be hurt by that,” she would tell the women. “Make them understand that Islam is not bad, Islam is inclusive.” It may take a few months or up to year, but, she said, employers usually come around so long as the helper continues to “do her job nicely”.

    “There is no perfect society,” Dr Maryam offered when asked about the social stigma that sometimes accompanies conversion to Islam. “Negativity breeds negativity. To lessen the stigma, prove (through your actions) that you’re not bad.”

    FAINTING ON THE JOB

    One major hurdle that all new converts have to overcome is their first Ramadan. Ms Bondoc and Ms Cachola would not be fasting this year, as there were only a few days left to Ramadan. But their friend, Nur Amira Monzon, remembered that first time 11 years ago.

    A domestic helper for an Australian family, she spends her days off volunteering as a guide at Darul Arqam. Ramadan is a busy period for the centre, with a constant stream of people coming in to offer zakat, or donations.

    Ms Monzon has a smile for anyone who meets her gaze or asks for help. With large eyes that sparkle when she speaks, she looks younger than her 39 years. Imagine my surprise when the single mother told me she has a 17-year-old daughter back in the Philippines. When I asked if she wouldn’t rather rest on her days off, she said: “I’m very happy to help people here. This is my second home.”

    She converted to Islam in November 2004 and experienced her first Ramadan the following year. The Chinese family she was working for then had three young children; looking after them was demanding work. On the third day of Ramadan, she felt tired and weak; her brain felt “like there was nothing”. At about 3pm, she fainted. Her employer sent her to the hospital.

    “You have to wake up early to suhoor, but I didn’t do that,” Ms Monzon said. Suhoor refers to the pre-sunrise meal that Muslims consume before starting the day’s fast. “You have to adjust yourself to that and it was a bit difficult for me – I had no appetite.” The doctor told her to stop fasting as her body was in shock.

    “SO MUCH LOVE” FROM STRANGERS

    Of course, not every convert goes through such a dramatic moment during their first Ramadan, especially if they have prepared themselves well. There is a wealth of information online about the kind of food to eat so that the body adjusts quickly to the rigour of fasting at least 12 hours a day.

    That was exactly what Shane Hew did – he Googled. The 27-year-old bachelor may be slim but he is a self-confessed big eater. And ever since he embraced Islam in January, he has become even more aware of what and how much he eats. To ready himself for his first Ramadan, he followed instructions he found online.

    The Uber driver’s Ramadan breakfast menu looked like recommendations from a women’s health magazine. Suhoor consisted mainly of oatmeal, banana and yoghurt, but no coffee – which dehydrates. The meal plan worked well for the Chinese Singaporean. His stomach only started growling at about 4pm or 5pm. When the hunger pangs hit, he told himself he had “just a few more hours” to go.

    Being a chauffeur-on-demand allowed Mr Hew – who took on the Muslim name Ehsan – the flexibility to break fast at a different mosque each day. He enjoyed the time spent with what he called his “food companions” – strangers he sat with for iftar (the meal eaten by Muslims after sunset during Ramadan). “During this whole breaking fast at the mosque, I get to experience so much love from different people,” he said.

    He recounted the first day when he queued up for food. “There was a Bangladeshi who was very loving and treated me as if I was his young brother – scooping rice for me and just stuffing me with food. And there was an Indian father with his kid who kept staring at me. The man asked why I converted to Muslim, then said, ‘May God bless you with peace in life.’”

    “You definitely cannot see this anywhere else. It makes me feel like I actually belong. There is no awkwardness. That’s the beauty of it,” said Mr Hew.

    NIGHTLY PRAYERS

    Hunger and thirst aside, another aspect of Ramadan may prove challenging for new converts.

    “The fasting part was my greatest worry at the start, but then I realised during Ramadan we have to perform the nightly prayers,” said Ms Li Jinghan, who underwent conversion just before Ramadan last year. “That was difficult,” she recalled.

    The bubbly 26-year-old Chinese Singaporean met her Malay Muslim husband Muhammah Aizat Khalis in 2012 while both were studying at university. “Before we even agreed to be together, he made it very clear that for us to even get to the stage of marriage, I would have to convert. But he didn’t pressure me, he was just saying, make the effort to learn, and then we’ll see how it goes.”

    After dating for three years, with the blessings of both their families, the couple decided to marry. That was when Ms Li converted, taking on Jihan as her Muslim name.

    “I converted about two weeks before Ramadan, so I was just getting used to praying. It was really painful to do the five prayers (a day), and then now (during Ramadan) I have to go to the mosque for extra prayers. After we break fast, we’d be at the mosque at about 8pm and we’d pray until 9pm or 10pm. It was really exhausting,” Ms Li said.

    Sometimes, she would break down and cry. Noticing her struggle, her in-laws asked her to take it easy, but Ms Li felt obliged. “I feel bad if I don’t try,” she said.

    This year, things got a lot easier. “It’s been a whole year of praying, my legs got used to it. In March I actually went for the pilgrimage and we prayed a lot. That was when I realised, okay, so last year wasn’t so bad,” she said, chuckling.

    BEING A BLESSING TO OTHERS

    Inspired by her own initial struggles in practising Islam, she recently quit her job at the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) to focus on building an online platform for converts worldwide.

    “I realised a lot of Muslims are being marginalised in their own society, they can’t declare their faith like I do in Singapore. And they might not be able to find the products they need easily, be it prayer items, or modest clothing, or even Islamic books to know more about their religion. I’m just hoping I can bring ease and convenience to the lives of Muslims worldwide.” Ms Li said.

    She has the full support of her husband, an immigration and customs officer. “She kept thinking about it every night – even after she got home from AVA she would work until 2am, 3am just to pursue her dream,” said Mr Aizat, 28.

    I asked Ms Li what Ramadan meant to her. She said: “I’ve seen the way (religion) shaped my husband’s worldview and how he treats his parents. He’s very filial, he loves his siblings a lot, he’s very kind and generous, and I thought all of that came from the guidance of Islam.

    “When I understood that, all I want to be is a blessing to others. That’s what I aim to be, as a Muslim.”

     

    Source: ChannelNewsAsia

  • Mass Anti-Muslim Protests In Rakhine

    Mass Anti-Muslim Protests In Rakhine

    Myanmar’s bitterly divided Rakhine State saw mass protests yesterday as thousands of Buddhists, including monks, demonstrated in a show of opposition to a government edict referring to Muslim communities in the restive province, organisers said.

    Anti-Muslim rhetoric has spiked across Myanmar recently, with two mosques torched by Buddhist mobs in just over a week in a country where sectarian violence has left scores dead since 2012.

    Home to around one million stateless Rohingya Muslims, Rakhine State has been hardest hit by religious violence that has left tens of thousands of the persecuted minority in fetid displacement camps.

    The Rohingya are reviled by Rakhine Buddhists who refuse to recognise any shared rights to the province and instead call them “Bengalis” – or illegal immigrants from nearby Bangladesh.

    Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s new government has sought to defuse the row over the term Rohingya, ordering officials to refer instead to “Muslim communities in Rakhine”.

    But protesters yesterday said that this term was also unacceptable as it handed Muslims recognition in a Buddhist state.

    “We reject the term ‘Muslim communities in Rakhine State’,” protest organiser Kyawt Sein said, adding that more than 1,000 people, including monks, had joined the rally in the state capital.

    Demonstrators there shouted slogans including “Protect Rakhine State”, while a protest in the town of Thandwe drew similar numbers.

    “Bengalis should be called Bengalis,” said local Rakhine youth group leader Phoe Thar Lay, adding that 17 townships across Rakhine were participating in protests yesterday.

    Most Rohingya live cut off from the Buddhist community in displacement camps or remote settlements since sectarian riots tore Rakhine apart in 2012.

    Persecution and poverty have forced tens of thousands to flee by sea, but the dangerous trafficking route south through the Bay of Bengal was closed late last year during a Thai crackdown on people smuggling.

    Ms Suu Kyi, a veteran democracy activist who championed her country’s struggle against repressive military rulers, has drawn criticism from rights groups for not taking up the cause of the Rohingya.

    Instead she has carefully sought to sidestep controversy, urging the international community to give the country “space” to unpick its sectarian problems.

    The Rohingya are not recognised by the government as an official ethnic minority.

    After a 12-day visit to Rakhine and other conflict sites in Myanmar, a United Nations rights investigator warned last Friday that “tensions along religious lines remain pervasive across Myanmar society”.

    Ms Yanghee Lee urged the country’s new civilian government to make “ending institutionalised discrimination against the Muslim communities in Rakhine State… an urgent priority”.

    On Friday, a mosque was torched by a Buddhist mob in the town of Hpakant in the far north.

    That incident came eight days after a crowd of Buddhists destroyed another mosque in central Bago, forcing the Muslim community to seek refuge in a neighbouring town.

     

    Source: The Straits Times

  • UAE Tells Citizens To Avoid National Dress While Abroad After Man Held In US

    UAE Tells Citizens To Avoid National Dress While Abroad After Man Held In US

    The United Arab Emirates has urged men to avoid wearing the white robes, headscarf and headband of the national dress when travelling abroad, after a businessman visiting the United States was wrestled to the ground and held as an Islamic State suspect.

    UAE media reported that the Emirati man was detained in Avon, Ohio, last week after a female clerk at a local hotel called 911 to report what she had described as a man affiliated to Islamic State, according to the Arabic-language al-Bayan newspaper. It only identified him by his initials.

    The English language The National said the receptionist at the Fairfield Inn hotel called the police after she heard the man talking on his phone in the hotel lobby.

    Gulf News, another UAE newspaper, published photos of the Emirati man in white robes being wrestled to the ground and handcuffed before being led away by police.

    In a message on a Foreign Ministry Twitter account focusing on citizens travelling abroad, the ministry said on Saturday (Jul 2):

    “For citizens travelling outside the country, and in order to ensure their safety, we point out not to wear formal dress while travelling, especially in public places,” the message dated July 2 stated, without referring to the Avon incident.

    The Foreign Ministry, in a message posted on its website in Arabic and English, urged citizens to abide by the laws of countries they are visiting. It alerted women to countries in Europe whose laws prohibit wearing of face covers, also without referring to the incident in Avon.

    Local newspapers said Avon police released the man after they realised their mistake, but he fainted and needed hospital treatment.

    Al-Bayan reported that the citizen had hired a lawyer to pursue the case, saying he had received no apology from either the police or the hotel.

     

    Source: ChannelNewsAsia