Hi Everyone....

I m a new member to this community and it's ma first post. I generally like the views presented on this community and think that u people r doing a gr8 job...

I just want to BEG TO DIFFER with Sajid sahab on the concept of Dhimmies and his eexpounding about the mindset of "SO-CALLED MODERNS' VIEWS ON ZIMMIES"......!

tau Sajid sahab...baat yeh hai key......that the concept of zimmies is actually a part of the int'l law of Islam and this concept was a very bright and very forward-looking and very justified concept some 14 centuries back.....but now the Islamic scholars have to review their stance on the concept of Zimmies and i think that Ijtehad serves as the best tool for this thing, although the Scholars refuse to do so and their thinking is still stuck in those ancient times.....remember Islam at that time was popular and an instant hit because in those times, Islam was a very very very modern and radical religion and it hit against the rigid norms and even laws of that era.....So to keep it dynamic and modern and flexible according to the requirements of this era, the scholars need to be enlightened and need to be moderate too.....Yes....there can be no changes in the ibadaat in Islam.....Prayer and Fasting r to be carried out as they were 14 centuries back...but "Muaamlaat" in Islam can be modified by Ijtehad....So if the present world is civilized and gives to the citizens equal rights irrespective of their religion, the Islamic scholars must keep this fact in mind and review their views regarding the concept of Zimmies......By the way......how wud u feel if Muslims in India r labelled as religious minorities and barred from claiming any Govt. post, let alone the Presidency. u have already seen that how the concept of Zimmies was misused by the Talibans and the Sikhs in Afghanistan were forced to wear a yellow badge....don't u think that it's discrimination.

Also, in the present world context, religious tax, as envisioned in the concept of Zimmies, is considered a contemptous discrimination and so, if it will be applied, it will malign Islam and add to the Islamophobia of the west.

I personally think that, in this modern era, where all citizens are considered equal in almost all the countries, like USA, UK, India etc, the discrimination of citizens on the basis of religion is wrong and one has to keep the speech of Quaid on 11th August 1947 in the Constituent Assembly in the mind in which he clearly echoed the modern and PLURALISTIC version of Islam and declared that all citizens are equal irrespective of their religion.

I recently have studied a book on pre-partition and onward history of Indian Muslims (Hindustani Musalman Aayena-e-Ayam Main) by an Indian Muslim scholar Dr. Abid Hussain. This book was written in 1960's. While discussing the discriminatory attitude of Hindu majority towards minority Muslims in India, he mentions that on this issue (page 306), we will have to differentiate between Indian Muslims and Pakistani Muslims. He says that Indian Muslims at that time (1960’s), generally were quite unhappy with those Pakistani politicians, most of whom happened to be their own leaders in the pre-partition era. Indian Muslims now (i.e. in 1960’s) think those leaders of Muslim League used Indian Muslims just as pawns with the view to just win their own game. Now those old as well as new Pakistani politicians pretend before the world to be the sympathetic advocates of Indian Muslims, in the issue of Hindu discriminatory attitudes towards minority Muslims, with the view to capture the sympathies of world for them and in this way get their own benefits.

The author says if really they were the true well-wishers of Indian Muslims then instead of showing their false sympathies for Indian Muslims before other nations, they themselves should have adopted some more liberal policy towards Pakistani Hindus which should have served as a good example for the Indian Hindus. Instead of doing this, Pakistani politicians, in their attempt to please Pakistani Muslims with just meaningless words, have named their state as ‘Islamic Republic’ and so have unduly annoyed the Pakistani Hindus over it. Factual position, according to author, however is that in the whole of Pakistan’s constitution, there is very little element of democracy whereas any Islamic element whatsoever is just missing in it. The structure of this constitution, more or less, is the same to those of eighteenth century’s semi-democratic secular states. With only one of its sections, which requires the head of state necessarily to be a Muslim, some effort to give this constitution an Islamic touch have been done. This however happened to be quite unsatisfactory in addressing to the Islamic passions of Pakistani Muslims but still then Pakistani Hindus have developed a grave complaint that they are being discriminated by the constitution of their own state. This situation has given more strength to those Indian Hindus who want to discriminate Muslims in India, in their hands.

Then author says that we (i.e. Indian Muslims) should keep no positive hope from Pakistani politicians. They have their own selfish ends. They have no concern how their policies are badly influencing Indian Muslims……..

Dhimmis means the 'protected ones'. The tax imposed on them is called Jizya. This tax is levied on them for residing inside an Islamic State and getting military protection and in return they are exempted from Military service. However they have the choice to take part in such services, Islam doesn't bar them from it.

This concept is no longer visible all around the world. I have not seen any Muslim country imposing Jizya on Hindus today!

(Do you think any Ijtihad needs to be performed?)

For Brother Khurram:

That is a very sensitive topic. NO Comments!!

Regards,

__________________
"The race is not over because I haven't won yet."

Adil Memon
Police Service of Pakistan (P.S.P)
37th Common Training Program

Well, i read all the views of worthy members.I just wanna add few things.
I also attempted the same essay last yr n it was ths topic which delayed my entry into csa for one long yr. I recommend never to write on philosohical essays.There is big margin of going astray from right way.Which result in disaster,as i faced.Any essay/topic ends with "ISM" must be avoided unless u r 200% sure.It would appreciative if scientific essays with solid data be attempted,coz its rewarding.Best wishes.

salam dear.
i would like to add few thngs to waheed's words.dears always attempt tht topic

ON WHICH U HAVE PLENTY TO WRITE
WHICH Z NOT CONTROVERSIAL
WHICH Z EASIEST OF ALLLLLL
I PERSONALY ATTEMPTED TWO ESSAYS THT WR
soceo eco problms of pakistan
somthng like water n energy shortage

both vr easy and good to write.most of ppl would not believe tht i n waheed didnt prepared essay paper at alllllllllllllllll it was matter of time gaye or bety

THNKS TO GOD ALMIGHTY THT WE QUALIFIED AFTER ALL.

do use synopsis tht would help u lot n essay writings.

thnks

aamer khattak

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[FONT="Comic Sans MS"]Engineer Aamer Khattak[/FONT]

By Prof Sharif al Mujahid


CULTURAL diversity, like flux, is the law of human life. Diversity is something that characterizes everything that exists in this world — both animate and inanimate. More particularly, it is built in everything that breathes — plants, animals, and homo sapiens. Indeed, diversity characterizes individuals, groups, nations, cultures, and civilizations.

In a word, it is a pluralist world we live in. More specifically, it was pluralistic yesterday, it is pluralistic today, and it would continue to be pluralistic tomorrow, despite what Huntington envisages and proposes for a new world order in the coming decades.

In the current debate on Islam and Islamic civilization, Islam, incredibly though, has often been perceived and presented as envisaging a cosmos which calls for an unalloyed monistic society, with built-in fanaticism and zero-sum tolerance. This perception is inherently erroneous, ab initio and ipso facto, though. In sum, it stems primarily from a gross ignorance of the basic Islamic doctrines, if not from a jaundiced interpretation of these doctrines. For, even a cursory reading of the Quranic text indicates that pluralism has been averred again and again. Consider, for instance, the following verses:

Mankind! We created / You from a single (pair) / Of a male and a female / And made you into / Nations and tribes, that / Ye may know each other / (Not that ye may despise (Each other). (Surah 49, al-Hajurat: 13)

We sent not an apostle / Except (to teach) in the language / Of his (own) people, in order / To make (things) clear to them. / Now God leaves straying / Those whom He pleases / And guides whom He please: / And He is Exalted in Power, / Full of Wisdom. (Surah 14, al-Ibrahim: 4)

Those who believe and those who are the Jews and / The Christians and the Sabians — whoever believes / In God and the Last Day and does good works — / They have their reward with God, and no fear / shall come on them nor shall they grieve. (Surah V, al-Maida: 72)

The principle of pluralism, which and other surahs affirm finds fulsome expression in a statement as the climax to Surah al-Kafirun: Say: O ye / That reject Faith / Worship not that / Which ye worship, / Nor will ye worship / That which I worship / And I will not worship / That which ye have been / Wont to worship / Nor will ye worship / That which I worship / To you be your Way, / And to me mine. (Surah 109, al-Kafirun: 1-6)

Such affirmation in religious freedom is the hallmark of Islam alone. More remarkable, no other religious text affirms this principle so explicitly as the Qur’an does.

Not only in principle, but in practice as well, Islam sanctified pluralism and cultural diversity. This principle, for instance, was recognized and practised in the first Islamic state, founded in Madinah in 622/623, by the Prophet (PBUH) himself, soon after the hijrah (622). The foundational document, on which this state was raised, was the Misaq al-Madinah or the Covenant of Madinah, 622/623. And for the governance of the multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-religious Madinah, the Misaq sanctified the principle of religious, racial, cultural and linguistic pluralism.

Besides the immigrant Qurayshite Muslims, Madinah was then inhabited by the prominent Arab tribes of Aws and Khazraj (which had, by and large, been converted to Islam over time) and several Jewish tribes (including that of the more important Banu’Awf). This Misaq, often referred to as the first written “charter of rights and duties”, guarantees the rights of different entities — racial, religious, cultural, and linguistic — as never before, and they were, moreover, considered as integral parts of the Islamic-orientated civil society. Article 2 of the Misaq pronounces the Qurayshite and the Medinite Muslims as constituting “a political unit (ummah) as distinct from all the people (of the world),” and Article 25 lays down that “the Jews of the Banu ‘Awf shall be considered as a community (ummah) along with the Believers, for the Jews being their religion and for the Muslims their religion...” The subsequent articles (26-35), and 46) include other Jewish tribes within the Ummah canopy.

Thus, pluralism came to constitute, as it were, an integral part of the foundational groundwork of the first Islamic state. And the society Islam had sought to establish since its inception was an equitable and tolerant one i.e., a society which is absolutely free from the cantankerous evils of creeping prejudice and invidious discrimination, and which does not debar anyone from his entitlement to a fair deal on the basis of his race, language, culture, and religion. Thus, fourteen hundred years ago, Islam had set its face against the extermination of minorities through ethnic cleansing as witnessed in the blood-drenched twentieth century in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Kashmir.

What is more remarkable about Muslim societies and the Muslim principles of governance is that not only during the era of classic Islam but long after it the overriding principle of racial, religious, cultural and linguistic pluralism was more or less operative in Muslim lands. Thus, for instance, the Muslim rulers in India, both the Delhi Sultans (1206-1526) and the Great Mughals (1526-1707), followed an ‘open-door’ policy, a policy that was receptive to other influences in the widest political and social sense of the term.

No one for that matter was barred on the basis of race and religion from seeking opportunity in the land, and earning the reward of talent and merit. Even Europeans who came to India in increasing numbers during the 16th and 17th centuries found the climate congenial to a recognition of their talents and to reaping the fruits of their labours: some, like the jeweller Tavernier, traded; some, like the French doctor Bernier, practised their professions; and still others served the Mughal government as artillery men or as ordinary soldiers.

Thus, Islam had affirmed, and Muslim society had largely practised, the hallowed principle of pluralism and cultural diversity. Indeed, Islam in its doctrines and Muslim societies in history present an anti-thesis of the horrendous picture of Islam painted by the latter-day western polemicists, propagandists, and jaundiced observers.

Now, a word about inter-cultural dialogue. There are, at least, two ahadis which, impliedly, call for such a dialogue — the oft-quoted hadith, “Seek ye knowledge from China”, for one. It literally meant that a Muslim was decreed to seek knowledge, even if he had to travel all the way to China (just imagine what all it meant to travel to China in the seventh century!). And how could one seek knowledge without engaging in inter-cultural dialogue?

The Prophet (PBUH) had also decreed that “the word of wisdom is the cherished object of the believer; wherever he finds it, he has a greater title to it” (in Maaja/Tirmizi). Now what do these ahadis imply? They imply a recognition — not only of the existence of civilizations other than that of the Muslims but also that these civilizations posit something which is in the interest of common good and which Muslims can conveniently borrow and adapt for their own progress and prosperity. And since you wouldn’t borrow and adapt elements from a civilization which you really don’t consider worthwhile and worthy of esteem, it also means a recognition of the cardinal fact that the world comprises several civilizations worthy of note and esteem.

In other words, it’s a pluralist world in terms of societies and civilizations. And it is because of such positive and progressive teachings that the Muslims in the classical period, though masters of half the then known world — by 712 AD they were the sovereign power from Spain on the one hand to Sindh on the other — they had developed the tradition of acquiring knowledge from the “civilized” people whom they had come in contact with, though through conquest.

As a corollary, the Muslims did not myopically confine themselves to Arabic, their mother tongue, alone but avidly learnt the languages of the people whom they had worsted in the field of battle, because these languages were then the repository of the state of the art in various sciences. Once this was accomplished, Muslims moved on to the next major step of translating the works in these languages that had contributed to the arts and the sciences, into Arabic, and of borrowing, adapting and assimilating elements from the Greek, Syriac, Iranian and Indian civilizations.

Because of this exercise, the Muslims shone forth in various branches of knowledge and in the arts, and contributed substantially and significantly to the onward march of humanity. This they did from the eighth to the 13th century i.e., till about the fall of Baghdad to Halaku’s hordes in 1258. They had, thus, stood as the pioneers and the minarets in various fields for some five centuries, with Ibn Khaldun from the Maghreb being the last outstanding figure in the 14th century. The fall of Baghdad marked the decline and downfall of the Islamic/Muslim civilization, and for over seven centuries now the Muslims have yet to turn the tide of history.

And since Baghdad they have swerved from the inductive method which the Quran commends at several places, and have turned their back on the erstwhile trend of borrowing, assimilating and adapting elements from other civilizations. In the ultimate analysis, this represents the core cause of their present backwardness. And if only because of an inferiority complex vis-a-vis, especially, the western civilization, they had unwittingly opted for the readily available easy choice of receding into a newly devised hard-crusted shell, and refused to give due recognition to other civilizations for what they are worth. In the process, the tradition of inter-cultural dialogue got irretrievably eroded.

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Life is a kaleidoscope of flaws, desires, emotions and mishaps__ YHK