Authorities in Kashmir have initiated a profiling process of mosques, madrassas, and individuals associated with their management following the exposure of a 'white collar' terror module. The enumeration drive focuses on the finances of these institutions and the backgrounds of their personnel.
According to sources in Gandhinagar, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi met a range of Muslim leaders including the Deobandis in the last week of Ramazan. In an off-the-record conversation, a Muslim community leader from Ahmedabad said that an important Islamic scholar and a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board had a 90-minute discussion with Modi during Ramzan.
'In this assembly election, Muslims here will vote for one who works, but also one who safeguards their identity.' 'Their existence is more important they feel, than a faulty light meter. So yes, a Muslim representative will make a difference.'
Leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband has issued a fatwa against manufacturing and selling of firecrackers, saying it was against Sharia law.
Islamic educational institution Darul Uloom Deoband has made this year's admission process more stringent by making police verification of the documents submitted by the applicants mandatory, the institute's management said on Friday.
The 13th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team cites a UN Member State as saying that Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a Deobandi group ideologically closer to the Taliban "maintains eight training camps in Nangarhar, three of which are directly under Taliban control."
With the Uttar Pradesh government set to conduct a survey of private madrassas, proprietors of the theological schools fear that their institutions may be declared illegal and 'run over by bulldozers'.
Maulana Masood Azhar was allowed to preach extremist ideology at several British mosques during a month-long visit to UK in 1993 on the invitation of Islamist scholars
Congressman Ed Royce, an influential Republican lawmaker, has slammed Pakistan for not shutting down the Deobandi schools that indoctrinate and brainwash people to engage in jihad.
Pakistani intelligence operatives arrested a prayer leader of a seminary at Faisalabad on Friday for alleged links to the terrorist attack on a naval airbase in Karachi that killed 10 security personnel, sources said.
Reliable sources claim that certain top figures within one (of the three rival) factions of the Deobandi mass organisation Jamiat ul-Ulema-e Hind are the real brains behind the ongoing hate campaign directed against Vastanvi, and that they are using Vastanvi's alleged pro-Modi remarks and certain other accusations now being leveled against him to oust him, says Yogi Sikand
The enslavement of the Muslim mind to the diktats of the mullahs has everything to do with the mullahs' political and personal interests in their capacity as self-styled 'authoritative' interpreters of Islam, says Yogi Sikand
Kashmiri separatists on Monday rejected the suggestion made by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, the powerful body of Deobandi clerics, at its Kashmir conference at Deoband that 'the issue should be resolved within the parameters of the Constitution of India.'
Deoband chief Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi's statement praising Gujarat's progress is een by many as a tacit stamp of approval for Narendra Modi. Yoginder Sikand looks at the implications of Vastanvi's words.
Influential US lawmaker Congressman Ed Royce has called for the shutting down of the Deobandi schools (madrassas) in Pakistan, which he alleged "continue to churn out terrorists that attack" democratic nations, including India and the United States.
For many mullahs, religion and religious institutions are simply tools to feather their own nests and to whip up the support of the credulous by projecting themselves as pious defenders of the faith, says Yoginder Sikand
'The alliance between the mullahs of the Wahhabi Al-e Shaikh and the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Al-e Saud, is like the oppressive nexus between the Christian Church and the monarchy in medieval Europe. It is proving to be a curse for Muslims.'
A prominent global think tank has termed the radical Sunni-Deobandi groups as the "primary source" of terror in Pakistan and said their continued patronage by the army has influenced Islamabad's relations with India and Afghanistan.
The men sitting around me -- dressed, like the rest of the crowd, in white kurta-pyjama, and sporting unkempt beards and white skull-caps -- enthusiastically shook their heads in agreement. Like the maulvi-poet, they laboured under the burden of being forced to prove their patriotism, their anti-Pakistani credentials, and their opposition to terrorism -- an unenviable predicament they were compelled to share with the rest of their co-religionists
The Students Islamic Movement of India was formed in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, in April 1977. SIMI had originally emerged as a student's wing, which aimed to 'liberate' India from the 'western materialistic culture'. Its founder president was Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiquie.
Seventeen of Britain's 26 Islamic seminaries are run by the Deobandis and they produce 80 per cent of home-trained Muslim clerics, it claimed. Many had their studies funded by local education authority grants.
Incidentally, Mufti Kalimi had issued a fatwa, declaring people who had attended a 'namaz-e-janaza' led by a Deobandi sect Maulana as non-Muslims. He had also termed their marriages as void.
Considering that Qatar is a trusted ally of Washington for decades, it is expected to be a steady influence on the Taliban leadership, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
No one has taken responsibility for the attack.
'The most unfortunate part is that after precipitating the crisis situation on Tuesday, the government ducked and took help from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to 'de-escalate' the situation.' 'Make no mistake, this fateful move has grave implications.' 'You don't take help from the wolf to guard the sheep, right?' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Today, there is pervasive fear in society; an uncertainty of what might happen.' 'This has forced Muslims to shrink further into mental ghettos, with many considering extreme measures like pretending to change their identity.'
Sheela Bhatt narrates the behind-the-scenes action in the Delhi headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat that finally forced the religious sect's compliance with the coronavirus shutdown.
Violence rocked Pakistan's biggest city on Tuesday as 13 people were killed in targeted shootings including five suspected Taliban activists, a Shia scholar and two Moroccan students at a religious seminary.
'Muslims must show patience and endurance.' 'The perception that has been created against them needs to be changed by them.'
Authorities across states have identified more than 6,000 people who attended the Nizamuddin Tablighi Jamaat congregation, the biggest COVID-19 hotspot in India.
'The clique that runs that country is treating us like suckers. We are very foolish, giving people money who involve themselves in activity that's harmful to America.' 'When you look at the cold hard facts, Pakistan is not an ally to the United States. They have facilitated, they have encouraged, they have been a protector of enemies.'
'In the Middle Ages, when Muslims were around 15 per cent of the population of the world, they accounted, according to one estimate, for 90 per cent of scientific advancements.' 'And today, when Muslims are around 22 per cent of the population of the world, their share in scientific writings is less than 1 per cent!' point out Ziya Us Salam and M Aslam Parvaiz.
'The fact that a rural Kashmiri boy was brainwashed into killing himself and others means there is an active programme that exists which does such recruiting and there will potentially be other such individuals out there,' warns Aakar Patel.
The nine meetings offer an interesting window into Shafi Armar's efforts to try and group together what after all were excitable keyboard warriors into an actual terror group, capable of handling weapons, organising recruits, cooking homegrown explosives, selecting safe training areas, safe houses and finally, committing strikes against Indian targets.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board on Thursday said there was no scope of change in the triple talaq system and rejected the suggestion by some community outfits for building a consensus on making a three-month period mandatory before finalisation of divorce.
Disappointed over Pakistan's slow pace of trial in Mumbai terror attack case, a top American lawmaker has demanded that the seven suspects, including Lashkar-e-tayiba operational commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, be handed over to the International Criminal Court to bring them to justice.
Rohingyas settled in Jammu tells how they are facing a battle for survival
Little has changed in Digital India. The issue that rocked the nation 100 years ago still creates a furore in Indian society, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
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