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www.amust.com.au ISSUE # 160
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Multicultural News & Views
MARCH 2019; JAMAADIYUL UKHRAA 1440
Remembering Malcolm X BOOMERANG PAGE 7
Woolies creates halal brand
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Kashmir: cycling between violence and oppression
Mohamed Ainullah The Australian supermarket chain Woolworths will be selling its own brand of halal products labelled Al-Sadiq by the middle of this year. Al-Sadiq, meaning truthful branded products will be stocked in more than 20 Woolworth stores especially in the suburbs of Western Sydney with large Muslim populations. The Woolworths in-house brand has been created and certified with consultation from the Islamic Council of Queensland in order for the supermarket chain to gain the confidence and trust of Muslim shoppers that rely on the credentials of halal food. Al-Sadiq private label would first cover chicken products but could be extended to include other fresh and packaged grocery items if there was support from local communities. This initiative is part of a wider strategy by Woolworths to grow its range of ethnic and international groceries that are in demand from an increasingly diverse multicultural community in Australia. Woolworths Director of Buying Mr Peter McNamara said the company made the move because of the increasing diversity of its customers. ‘We have identified over a period of time that the opportunity to better serve what is an increasingly diverse clientele across particularly Sydney and Melbourne, and other parts of Australia as well, “ Mr McNamara said. He said that because halal food is religiously sensitive, the company wanted their own in-house brand to make sure they get it right. Continued on page 2
Kashmiri women demanding information of their sons who have disappeared presumably killed. Abu Anees The killing of 42 Indian security forces on Thursday 14 February in Kashmir valley by a young Kashmiri suicide bomber has triggered gun battles between Kashmiri militants and the Indian military resulting
in the killing of several militants, police and military officers as well as civilians. Kashmir is a Himalayan Muslim-majority region, that is split between Pakistani and Indian areas of control, but both countries claim it in its entirety and have fought two of their three wars over it. Kashmiris, who have been calling for
self-determination as promised by UNO and agreed upon by both India and Pakistan, have been caught in vicious cycle of violence perpetrated by militant separatists and oppression by the Indian military with killings, disappearances and human rights abuses on an ongoing basis for decades. continued on page 2 Gulhan Eryegit Yoldas
Before 1770: Discovering Australia’s Muslim history Proudly Printed in Australia by Spotpress Pty Ltd
On Saturday 23 February a predominately Muslim crowd took their seats in the Hoyts cinema theatre in the heart of Melbourne City to watch the much anticipated sold-out screening of Before 1770. The film which explores Australia’s Muslim history was directed by Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, proudly supported by Abu Hanifa Institute and Sadaqa Welfare Fund. The Welcome to Country for this groundbreaking event was performed by none other than our local Muslim indigenous elder of the Wurunjeri, Hassan Gardiner who also contributed to the panel discussion afterward. In a statement introducing the film, Sheikh Wesam explained “Knowing that Muslims had a long-standing relationship with Aboriginal people from North East Arnhem Land (Yolngu Clan) is profoundly significant... continued on page 17
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Kashmir: cycling between violence and oppression Continued from page 1 Following the suicide bombing, mass hysteria of outrage has gripped the Indian population following hate speeches by the Hindutva brigade comprising of Hindu right-wing leaders including the ruling BJP led by PM Modi publicised by the mainstream media as well as social media against Kashmiris and Pakistan. India has been drumming the beasts of war since the terrorist attack claimed by a Pakistan based JeM armed group espousing bigoted anti-Hindu and anti-Indian agenda. Pakistan has denied that it was involved in any way in the attack which it claimed was “conceived, planned and executed indigenously”. Pakistan reiterated its offer to help investigate the attack and to take action against anyone found to be using the Pakistani soil for attacks on India. Analysts say that the saber rattling of Modi government against Pakistan is politically motivated preparing for the upcoming national elections that BJP is afraid of losing. Creating national security crises using Pakistan as the bogey man and religious polarisation among the Indian voters is thought to benefit the Hindu nationist cause at the elections. Kashmiri students studying in various Indian universities have been attacked, Kashmiri businesses ransacked and many Kashmiris have complained of intimidation and harassment in various parts of India. Last weekend 22-23 February, the police made nighttime raids, arresting more than 150 people, mainly leaders and activists of Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu & Kashmir, a peaceful civil society organisation calling
National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah. for the self-determination for Kashmiris. Those arrested included the Jamaat’s Ameer Dr Abdul Hamid Fayaz, its spokesperson, Advocate Zahid Ali, former Secretary-General, Ghulam Qadir Lone and Mohammed Yasin Malik, the pro-independence leader who heads the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). Indian authorities on Saturday also rushed about 10,000 additional paramilitary soldiers to Kashmir Valley, deemed already as the world’s most militarised region. It is suspected that the arrests are in preparation for the court hearing designed by the BJP government for the abrogation of Article 35(A) of the Indian constitution that gives the special right to property and jobs to Kashmiri permanent residents. The arrests have drawn widespread criticism from Kashmiri political leaders.
“I fail to understand such an arbitrary move which will only precipitate matters,” Mehbooba Mufti, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state said. “Such illegal and coercive measures against Kashmiris are futile and will not change realities on the ground,” said Hurriyat Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. National Conference vice-president and a former chief minister, Omar Abdullah on Monday 25 February warned New Delhi that any fiddling with J&K’s special status will have “serious and far-reaching consequences” in the state. He reiterated that New Delhi and the governor-led administration in Jammu and Kashmir should leave the defence of the state’s special position to the state’s elected government.
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Woolies creates halal brand
Continued from page 1 Mr McNamara said the evolution of the Woolworths private label halal brand began when the chain wanted to be able to provide to its shoppers a consistent and quality offer. “When our fresh poultry team went looking to source product we found it difficult to find the quality and consistency and certification confidence for that style of product,” Mr McNamara further added. Woolworths stores have been selling halal products from other suppliers in many of their stores with special sections in stores with large Muslim populations for a number of years. It is the first step in a major strategic push by Woolworths to better curate the brands its 1000-plus stores nationwide carry, as changing demographics and growing multicultural populations look for ethnic foods and brands they enjoyed in their homelands such as China, Malaysia, India, South Africa and the Middle East. Woolworths have developed a road map of growth in line with Australian diverse population growth to match food products that includes areas like halal, kosher, Indian, Middle Eastern, Chinese and African food products.
Muslim Lawn KEMPS CREEK CEMETERY
Kemps Creek Cemetery now has a dedicated Muslim Lawn, offering a peaceful rural cemetery to the Muslim community. Located only 25 minutes’ drive from Blacktown and 35 minutes from Auburn. › Single and double burial graves available › 3 year interest free payment plans available
Part of the local community For further information please contact:
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Kemps Creek Cemetery on 02 9826 2273 from 8.30am-4pm 230-260 Western Rd, Kemps Creek NSW 2178 www.kempscreekcemetery.com.au
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MBS buys warm welcome Supports China’s mass in the East: persecution of Muslims The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mo- concentration camps by saying “China has hammad bin Salman known as MBS, the right to take anti-terrorism and de-exhaving been shunned from the West due tremism measures to safeguard national seto the Khashoggi affair, made a move curity.” towards the East in the second In India, he was warmly received half of February visiting and hugged by PM Modi at the airPakistan, India and Chiport signing off $100 billions of na with his large entoupotential deals, while attacks rage. on the Muslim minority in the In order to restore his country have become a major Zia Ahmad international reputaelection issue. tion, he signed off tens After Khashoggi’s killAssalamu of billions of dollars ing, Western business leadin the three countries ers boycotted an investment Alaikum he visited, receiving a conference in Saudi Arabia, Greetings hero’s welcome without nicknamed “Davos in the Dechallenging the socio-politisert.” Pakistan Prime Minister, of Peace cal status quo in the region. Imran Khan was one of the few state In China, MBS who is considleaders who attended and was willing to ered to be the custodian of the two holy have his picture taken with MBS. Soon afplaces in Makkah and Madinah did not ter, Saudi Arabia gave Pakistan a $6 billion challenge China for its persecution of bailout to ease its economic woes, cementMuslims in the province of Xinjiang. ing the friendship. In fact, he justified Chinese de-IslamisaImran Khan, a proud Pathan, he may be, tion of more than a million of Uighurs in had to bow down for his impoverished coun-
EDITORIAL
AMUST
AMUST ISSUE # 160 FRIDAY 1 MARCH 2019 23 JAMAADIYUL UKHRAA 1440 News
try to seek funds from the Arab Sheikhs in order to survive economically. The MBS visit to Pakistan earned the country another $20 billions in investment funding. On the first day of his visit to Pakistan, MBS was given a red carpet welcome in Islamabad, with Prime Minister Imran Khan receiving him at an airbase and personally driving him into the city. On the second day, MBS met Pakistani President Arif Alvi in the capital Islamabad, where he was awarded the Nishan-e-Pakistan (Order of Pakistan), its highest civilian award at a formal ceremony. Time will tell if MBS has been able to restore his damaged international reputation after the Khashoggi affair, but indeed he is trying his best. But he has been widely condemned by all sections of the Ummah for his support of the Chinese persecution of Muslims in “deradicalisation” or rather “de-Islamisation” camps which are reported to house 1-3 million Uighur Muslims.
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- Kashmir: violence & oppression - Woolies creates halal brand - Australia’s Muslim history
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- Editorial: MBS buys warm welcome - Ignorant judge’s poor advice - Iran at 40: A critical assessment
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- Parliamentary delegation to Palestine - Australia ignoring death of refugees
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- Somalis are not all the same - Islamic Schools for research - School governance workshop at WGS
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- Can judges be totally objective? - Amnesty, UNHCR hail Pakistan
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- Reforms of the Prophet - Steps to Success
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Disclaimer
Readers comments
Re: Diversity of support at ‘In- of slavery with the same enthusiasm as the current Liberal Party, the ideological heirs vasion Day’ rallies
ing Muslim population in the area is another type of response to the defamation of the faith. We have a huge task before us to ensure that neither Muslim extremists with their twisted version of the religion nor the juiced up religious bigots with their fear and hatred campaigns dominate the landscape. Bilal Cleland
This is just stupid… People have a problem with the date? It happened and that’s the way it was. It’s history. Changing it to any other date is pointless and doesn’t change history or the facts. Australia day should unite us, not cause protests. We need to accept the history of the country, whether it was right or wrong, there is nothing we can do about what happened in the past. Mustafa
of John Macarthur and the Rum Corps. Bilal Cleland
“The choice of January 26th as “Australia Day” is the result of lobbying over many years of the racist Australian Natives Association, which was a very vocal supporter of the White Australia Policy and the suppression of the rights of the First Nations people. They hated immigrants too…………… ………….”Reflecting a substantial section of public opinion, the Australian Natives Association in its 1939 Congress in Warrnambool, while condemning the spread of fascism, also carried a motion calling for tight restrictions on the number of aliens who could be permitted to enter the country. It demanded that they should not be permitted to concentrate together in communities, should not be permitted to have their own schools or teach in their own languages, not have foreign language newspapers and that they should be subjected to an English language test after three years. Failure to “be a ground for expatriation.” This extreme position on the acquisition of English was not exceptional. “Argus 23 March 1939. Australia Day used to be celebrated in July. Do not be misled by the propaganda of xenophobes about the sanctity of the arrival of the First Fleet. My great great great granny 17 years old was on it and she would not have celebrated the beginning of her period
Re: Malaysia bans Israeli athRe: Ignorant Judge’s poor ad- letes, loses the tournament vice to “knowledgeable MusPM Mahatir and Malaysian continous suplims” port for the oppressed Palestinians should
MARCH 2019 / ISSUE 160
Re: Hawking’s black hole: A rediscovery of Quran Re: Saudi state implicated into Very well articulated and presented. Khashoggi killing: UN experts Shaan
Excellent presentation, I am amazed. Allah will give you the best possible return. Sulaiman
Islam and Quran are perfect. Muslims are not. So why not write an article outlining the historical context and current application of these verses? I feel there is way too much knee jerk reactions in our community when we should be leading without being apologetic or defensive. There will be those who disagree with (verses of) the Quran. That’s their right but we should not be living in fear giving excuses about “context” without clear evidence from the seerah. Oneummah
This sort of comment from a member of the judiciary diminishes that office in the eyes of many Australians, not just Muslims. It is sad that Islam has been so defamed in this country by ignorant and/or malevolent Islamophobes on one hand and stupid, ignorant muharibs and their supporters on the other that such commentary is widely accepted. The recent spurious letter distributed by bigots in Dandenong announcing the introduction of some Saudi-like restrictions as part of the Council response to the increas-
So cruel, Culprits will pay the price somewhere and somehow Justice will prevail eventually. Usman Malik
make most of the so called Arab Leaders be ashamed of themselves (lately) falling over Mr Netanyahu and his government! Mal
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Remembering Malcolm X Bilal Cleland This is a time when many of us remember the martyrdom of Malcolm X, El-Haj Malik El-Shabazz, on 21 February 1965. The evolution of his development towards Islam is worthy of study as to how an individual can come to terms with oppression and how it might best be resisted. The depth of white supremacist ideology in the United States has not been fully understood by those outside that divided nation, perhaps more divided now than it was in the period of the Civil Rights Movement. The attitudes of the Nation of Islam of Elijah Muhammad can be understood from the viewpoint of visceral reaction to oppression, but they were not in accord with the teachings of the Quran or the example of the Prophet (s). Malcolm’s Letter from Mecca, with which millions of Muslims are familiar, is a valid illustration of the evolution of his Islamic consciousness. Letter from Mecca – Malcolm X April, 1964 “For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors…… There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to blackskinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white. America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have
met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered ‘white’–but the ‘white’ attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.” As he developed his awareness of the nature of oppression he broadened from a focus on the USA to its universal characteristics. His extended journeys through Africa and the Middle East in that year of his Haj brought him into contact with people who had the same experience as him. He saw that oppression had similar roots throughout the world. He understood that the struggle of the African-Americans for civil rights should be transformed into a struggle for international human rights. Such consciousness, such awareness, combined with his charismatic personality and the extent of his support in the American community made him a threat to powerful interests. Malcolm also came to understand that anger was no basis for clarity of vision, echoing the message of Islam as conveyed by Prophet Muhammad (s) 1400 years before. Three members of the Nation of Islam were arrested and found guilty of the killing but two have since repeatedly asserted they were framed. That is not impossible given the racist atmosphere of the time. Whoever carried out the murder, Congress of Racial Equality Chairman James Farmer is convinced that it was a political assassination. There is no doubt that the J Edgar Hoover FBI made war against the civil rights movement, and it established COINTEL to disrupt and destroy a wide range of protest groups. The Zinn Education Project March 2016 ran an article “Why We Should Teach About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Move-
Malcolm X, Cairo, 1964. ment” which details the methods used. It has been hidden from most Americans. As Garret Felber of the Malcolm X Project wrote on the 50th anniversary of the assassination: “It is time to for a new investigation into the assassination of this civil rights leader that will lay to rest the lingering questions about the case, and ensure that all those involved have been brought to justice.” [22 Feb 2015 The Guardian] Bilal Cleland is a keen reader, a prolific writer and a regular columnist of AMUST based in Melbourne.
Ignorant Judge’s poor advice to “knowledgeable Muslims” Dr Ameer Ali Justice Desmond Fagan, while reading his judgement on the Jihadi Bonnie and Clyde terrorist case advising Muslims with “deep knowledge” to disavow some verses of the Quran, only shows how ignorant the magistrate was about the history and content of that tome, holiest to all believing Muslims. “If Australian followers of the religion, including those who profess deep knowledge, were to make clear public disavowal of these verses, as not authoritative instructions from Allah, then terrorists’ moral conviction might be weakened,” Justice Fagan said. To start with, the name religion, which originated as a binary between religion and secular in the context of European Enlightenment in order to separate the state from Church, is the most inappropriate term to describe Islam, which is Deen as the Quran refers to and is best translated as a way of life. The magistrate can be pardoned for using this misnomer, because even erudite Muslims make the same mistake. On the other hand his advice to Muslims with “deep knowledge” to disavow the verses which he referred to shows his sheer ignorance about the history and content of the MARCH 2019 / ISSUE 160
Quran. The verses he referred to are sometimes called the ‘sword verses’ or ‘war verses’. The Quran was revealed over a period of twenty-three years and some of its verses are context dependent while others are context independent. The verses referred by the magistrate belong to the former category. However, they cannot be expunged from the text, because they are God’s and not human’s. Will the magistrate guaranty that the context that necessitated those revelations will not happen in the future? The task of humanity therefore is to work towards a future that prevents such a context to develop. Those extremists who justify their violence by quoting these verses understand neither the history nor the context of the Quran, and not even the history of Islam. The Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, on the other hand used the analogy of doctor and medicine and said that the doctor does not throw away the medicine just because a patient misuses it. Does the mufti know that prescriptions have expiry dates? Does he mean therefore that Quranic verses also have expiry dates? I am sure he doesn’t. May be that what he meant got lost through translation. Mufti’s non-proficiency in English devalues his competency. We, Muslims of Australia, who love this country as much as other fellow Australians, must understand that we confront an environment of Islamophobia.
AMUST
Justice Desmond Fagan.
From the present Prime Minister through the judiciary and to the public media, Islam is constantly being tarnished, not always intentionally but mostly through ignorance and misunderstanding. It is our duty to clear the misperceptions. To do that we need to promote knowledgeable and competent people to play leadership roles. Dr Ameer Ali is a Sri Lankan born Australian citizen. He is a retired academic and research fellow. He was a former president of AFIC and Head of Muslim Advisory Group under Howard Government. Ameer has authored more than fifty journal articles and is a regular contributor to newspapers and periodicals on Muslim affairs.
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Once the people were all brown and black Fazlul Huq Once the people of the land were all brown and black, Then came the wave of white as they overran the original inhabitants of the land, It was followed by the period when the white would become more introvert and restless against the brown and black, Then the door was opened to men and women of all colours, races and faiths, For the nation to turn into the melting pot sooner or later, And while the need is there for even more, They would rightfully take more people every year based on needs and compassion, As some others are determined to close the door by hook or crook, While the deprived and the ones in danger in different parts of the globe would look for the way out, When some practice the doctrine of fear for the unknown, disunity and hatred, Based on prejudice and ignorance, As the wise ones would say: “There is more to gain from give and take and coming together.” Associate Professor Fazlul Huq is based in Sydney and leads the Biomedical Science Cancer Research Group in the School of Medical Sciences, Sydney Medical School. He is also an accomplished poet with over 12,000 compositions in Bengali and English and has also been involved in various community projects.
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Islamic Republic of Iran at 40:
A critical assessment Dr Daud Batchelor
The Islamic Republic of Iran, established following Ayatollah Khomeini’s successful 1979 Revolution, has stood as a remarkable polity, surviving for the last 40 years while withstanding widespread opposition. It’s support for Hezbollah broke the invincible aura of the Israeli war machine. Now, however, it faces its greatest challenge, since due to exclusivist policies, a strong front – the US-Israel alliance and Gulf regimes - gathers seeking its extinction. The suffering of Iranians is high due to the harshest-ever imposed sanctions. An objective assessment, as provided in my book, Comparing Political Systems of Islamic Republics; Pakistan and Iran, finds many positive Iranian achievements: admirable social equity in education, health and civil infrastructure; participatory democracy greater than in any Middle-Eastern country; strong defence capability and self-sufficiencies; expanded women’s rights; and science prowess reflected in being the country having the highest rise in research output in 2017. We see considerable downside too: imposition of hard-line conservative views, questionable judicial decisions, and harsh punishments disenchanted the youth majority from both religion and the leadership, producing secular-minded or sectarian nationalists; high corruption levels; and poor economic performance. Imam Khomeini’s error in 1989 following criticism by successor-designate, Ayatollah Montazeri, led to the appointment of a lesser leader, Hojjatul-Islam Khamenei, Iran’s Faqihtoday. Negative consequences are ev-
ident. Ayatollah Khamenei firstly, through interfering in vetting election candidates emasculated the socialist voice in parliament and jettisoned Khomeini’s pan-Islamic movement. Secondly, he antagonised the Sunni world by bolstering Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad and destabilised Yemen by supporting a Houthi takeover. Khamenei’s pan-Shi’a sectarianism infuriated the Saudi royals prodding them further into the US-Israeli camp. Iran strengthened its influence across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Simultaneously terrible civilian atrocities occurred and the worst refugee crisis in modern history. The situation raises major concerns against Iran projecting its power to Saudi’s north. Iran supports the Syrian regime to protect supply routes to Hezbollah, but a popularly-elected government would better withstand Israeli aggression. UN’s International Commission of Inquiry has “overwhelming volume” of testimony and videos documenting war crimes implicating the Syrian regime. Assad’s forces started killing demonstrators in the 2011 Spring. Government forces used banned chemical weapons, barrel bombs and cluster munitions in civilian areas. “Assad’s planes routinely bombed schools and hospitals”. The Arab League, OIC, and EU condemned Syria and applied sanctions. Shockingly, the Iranian leader praised al-Assad and confirmed he will continue support. Khamenei thereby became complicit in abetting war crimes. Of Syria’s 21 million people before the civil war, 500,000 are dead and 5 million emigrated. In 1982 Bashar’s father raised Hama city leaving 10,000-25,000, mostly civilians, dead or wounded – “deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people” in modern times.
“Inspite of
Iran’s flawed policy towards Syria, the Ummah needs to reject machinations of the USIsrael alliance against Iranian Muslims.
Bashar Al-Assad welcomed by Ayatollah Khamenei during his visit to Iran on 25 February 2019.
Prior to the civil war, 70% of Syrians were Sunnis, 11% Alawites, 10% Christians and 3% Shi’a. Sunnis are dismayed by the destruction of Damascus - the great centre of Sunni scholarship. International Religious Freedom highlighted that the Bashar government persecutes Sunnis. Al-Assad incentivized Sunni departures and is overturning the Sunni majority with legislation requiring citizens to register property or risk confiscation. Sunni emigrants are disadvantaged. In 1722, a discontented Afghan confederacy defeated the illustrious Safavids and ruled Persia - a reminder for Iran it should consider the well-being of Syrian Sunnis. Iran is, however, one of a few countries standing up to Israel’s turpitude. With a changing global situation where the US faces determined challenges from the combined might of China and Russia requiring a refocusing of its forces, a window of opportunity for Israel to achieve a US attack on Iran is fast closing. Veteran journalist, Eric Margolis, warned that the purpose of the just-completed Warsaw Summit “was to lay the ground-work for an anti-Iranian coalition to act as a figleaf for an upcoming attack on Iran”. Saudis, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, Is-
rael and Egypt attended. The conference met with a cold welcome from Washington’s European allies, which are engaged in a diplomatic process aimed at saving the 2015 nuclear deal. Inspite of Iran’s flawed policy towards Syria, the Ummah needs to reject machinations of the US-Israel alliance against Iranian Muslims. This writer suggests, firstly, if Iran mends fences, leading Sunni countries could re-establish good relations. Iran should offer to meet Saudi Arabia. Secondly, Iranian leaders should strive for Sunni-Shi’a unity and Iran’s Leader should reinstate Imam Khomeini’s vision for representative governance and Pan-Islamism. Thirdly, replace the Assad regime by facilitating democratic elections. Fourthly, Iran could offer to re-establish the former status quo in Yemen and, jointly with Gulf countries, fund Yemen’s peaceful reconstruction. Dr Daud Batchelor, holds an MA in Islamic and Other Civilisations and a Diploma in Islamic Studies from the International Islamic University Malaysia, PhD from University of Malaya, MSc from the University of London.
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Umrah ticket for IFAM Quiz winner Usman Malik
The Children’s Islamic Quiz Competition 2019 was held on Sunday 24 February at the Western Sydney University, Bankstown Campus. The highly popular and successful annual competition is organised by the Islamic Forum for Australian Muslims (IFAM) and has been running successfully for the past 14 years. The quiz competition is organised for young people in order to motivate them to increase their knowledge about Islam in a recreational way. Almost 170 children of different ages registered for the Quiz and the event was attended by a huge turnout of the participants along with their parents and community leaders as well as IFAM volunteers. With the attractive grand prize of Umrahticket paying for a visit to the holy lands of Makkah and Madinah, the kids prepared and participated in this Quiz with great dedication. The participants from KG to Year 10 were divided into different cohorts with respect to their ages and year of study in the school. IFAM volunteers helped the participants for their submissions of answers on the online portals, using Kahoot for the first time in the Quiz history, with display on the big screen. The competition drove to its successful conclusion with prize distribution at the end for all and special awards to top scorers. In category ‘D’ (school year 7-10) Ms Zaina Siddiqui won the first prize which was the Umrahticket. Ms Rafia Ali and Safia came second and third respectively. In category ‘C’ (school year 4-6) Tayiyat
From left: Mr Ashar Siddiqui, Councillor Bilal el Hayek, Ms Zaina Siddiqui (First prize winner), Mr Khalil (President Islamic society UWS), Mr Hadi Shehata (MCCA) and Mrs Ashar Siddiqui. stood first and won a laptop. In category ‘B’ (School year 2-3) Raihan Ahmed came first and was awarded with a laptop as well. All kids were awarded with gift hampers to make them feel valued and encouraged for such activities. There were many distinguishing guests who were invited to attend this event. Councillor Bilal el Hayek was the chief guest for this quiz competition. He distributed prizes to all winners in different categories. Mr Hayek during his address commended IFAM for bringing the community together by holding such unique events. He advised
the young people to seek knowledge in order to succeed in life and always be nice to their parents who worked hard to move their children forward in all spheres of life. Other distinguished guests included Dr Jaan Ali, from WSU, Mr Khalil, President of Islamic Society of WSU, and Dr Kashif Aziz, Vice President of IFAM. The main sponsor for the event, MCCA funded the Umrahticket. Mr Hadi Shehata from MCCA, Sydney office during his address emphasised that his organisation is committed to working with the community and has been sponsoring Muslim community events for a long time.
The Quiz organising team was led by Mr Aqeel Muqaddam with the supervision of Mr Usaid Khalil, Secretary General of IFAM. Other team members included Ashar, Zubair, Fahad, Fatima and Taqdees among others, and looked after all activities in an efficient way. Refreshment and lunch stalls were set up at the event venue for attendees to avail themselves according to their needs and choices. Please contact Mr Aqeel Mukaddam if you are interested to participate in the next quiz or need further information via email: ifamnswquiz@gmail.com
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Highlighting challenges faced by revert Muslims
The first speaker Dr Daud Abdul-Fattah Batchelor is an Australian Muslim of British-German descent, who converted to IsMuslim converts from three diverse lam over 40 years ago. He has worked in backgrounds talked about their person- corporate and university sectors in Australia al experiences after accepting Islam at a and is an environmental and earth scientist. community event in Melbourne on MonThe second speaker Janelle Difalco was day 4 February, organised by Islamic Sci- an Australian born Italian. She has recentence and Research Academy and Benevo- ly graduated from a bachelor’s degree on lence Australia. Islamic studies. She is currently doing her It is very exciting to masters in Classical Arahear when a person debic and honors in Islamic cides to join us as a new How many of us studies at ISRA. Muslim. We all want make a conscious Janelle talked about to hear their story, their struggles of being a new feeling, what brings effort to make them Muslim as a woman. them to Islam, how their feel welcome and Andrew Gardiner is families reacted. a proud descendant of After all this excite- accepted? the Wooroondjeri Ballak ment and welcoming, clan of the Woi-wurrung how many of us remember the new Mus- people, whose traditional country covers the lims, their needs and how they are coping place now we call Metropolitan Melbourne. with the new life style they just adapted? Since 2006, Andrew has been accepted How many of us make a conscious effort as an Elder and elected to the management to make them feel welcome and accepted? committee and Board of the Wooroondjeri Unfortunate truth is that we celebrate their Tribal Council. blessed decision with them but then go our It was enlightening and quite eye opening separate ways. to listen to their problems by themselves. We had a chance to hear their struggle The event surely left participants inspired varying from feeling welcomed in a new to do more to support the newest members community to being accepted without any of our community. judgement at this recent event. Speakers were chosen from 3 different Seyma is the Student Support and Welfare backgrounds to better reflect the new Mus- Officer for Islamic Sciences and Research lims’ profile in Australia. Academy (ISRA) based in Melbourne.
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Speakers Andrew Gardiner, Janelle Difalco and Dr Daud Abdul-Fattah Batchelor answer questions from the audience.
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Quran recitation by new Muslim Matthew Wallis.
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Sydney marks 40 years of Islamic Revolution Zia Ahmad The 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution was celebrated on Saturday 16 February at the Civic Theatre in Hurstville highlighting the great progress made in the field of education, health, women’s empowerment, defence, science and technology and self-sufficiency since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The invited guests and supporters at the event hosted by the World Ahlul Bait Assembly, Australia was addressed by academics, diplomats, interfaith and community leaders. The program was started off by the MC Mr Talal Toby with Acknowledgment of the Country followed by recitation of Quran by Mr Mustafa Ashrafi and national anthems of Australia and Iran. Mr Hussein Dirani during his welcome address on behalf of the hosts congratulated those present for the success of the Islamic Revolution in spite of sustained world opposition and summarised the great achievements of the Islamic Republic of Iran and progress made in all fields leading to self-sufficiency against opposition by big powers and Middle Eastern regimes. Ms Fousiya Bismi with the help of overhead presentation provided data showing a multifold increase in scientific progress, higher education and research in Iran after the establishment of the Islamic Republic owing to the emphasis of acquiring knowledge in Islam. Father Dave Smith, a parish priest who has visited Iran on several occasions having discussions with intellectuals and religious scholars praised warmth and open-mindedness of the Iranian people and wished them all the success in the future. A short clip was shown of the beginning of the revolution back as far as 1964 with the protest movement against the suppression of Iranians and finally its climax with the triumphant arrival of Imam Khomeini to Tehran in February 1979. Dr Tim Anderson, an academic pointed out a couple of areas of unprecedented pro-
gress by the Islamic Republic. “The average level of school education before the Islamic revolution in Iran was class 2 while within 40 years it has now reached to an average of class 10 in both males and females,” Dr Anderson said. In the area of health, Dr Anderson further added, “The life expectancy in Iran before the revolution was 53 years and within the four decades it has now reached almost 70 years as a result of tremendous healthcare programs, for all Iranians living in urban or rural areas.” The guests were also addressed by Sheikh Ahmed Aljundi, Sheikh Nami Farhat, Sheikh Dr Rahim Latifi, Mr Maher Dabagh and Mr Sanad Abu Munir from the Palestinian Workers Union. The final and keynote speaker at the event was the newly arrived Iranian Ambassador to Australia, Dr Fereidoun Haghbin who praised the organisers for hosting the event and thanked the various speakers before him for enumerating the various achievements of the Islamic Republic and commenting on each speech. Commenting on Ms Bismi’s address, Dr
Haghbin said, “she mentioned of the culmination of the Islamic Revolution on 11 February 1979 as an earthquake, why, because before the revolution the international system divided into the Soviet and the American blocks was based on economic progress and the Islamic revolution brought an earthquake in thought that change can be based on spiritualism and not just on materialism.” He further pointed out that in spite of the emphasis on spirituality and morals, Iran has made tremendous progress in science and technology. “Iran is among the top 20 countries in science and technology, number 4 in nanotechnology and number 8 in nuclear technology, no 14 in cloning etc,” Dr Haghbin further
added. He concluded by saying” However the main achievement is bringing freedom, justice and rule of law in domestic and international affairs, rather than might is right.” Due to the Adhan being called for Maghreb prayer, with all due respect, highly appreciated by the audience, Dr Haghbin abruptly stopped his speech and later mingled with guests in a most humble and friendly manner. The event ended with refreshments provided by the hosts for all. Zia Ahmad is the Editor-in-Chief of the Australasian Muslim Times AMUST.
Dr Fereidoun Haghbin, Iranian Ambassador to Australia.
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SAMAA cruise 2019 Overwhelming combines pleasure Sydney support for with knowledge Queanbeyan Mosque
AMUST Media A large number of Seniors, some of them accompanied with family members, hosted by SAMAA team members and volunteers filled the two storey Princess Cruises boat to its capacity on Sunday 17 February 2019 to enjoy the annual cruise event. As the boat cruised through the Sydney waters for three hours, starting at the Darling Harbour and touching the iconic spots of the Sydney Harbour and its many spectacles, the elderly enjoyed the scenic views intermingling with colleagues and friends. Mr Rauf Rizvi commenced the stage programme with a Naat. The cold breeze made it perfect weather as the audience was entertained by Shahid Malik and Priya with melodious Bollywood songs of the 70s and 80s while Fasihuddin Khan kept the audience engaged with his interactive skills during the musical program. It also happened to be the birthday of Mr Kazim Hussein, the senior most person on the boat, which was celebrated with birthday greetings and loud applause for his services to the community. Earlier, during the information session, Mr Hassan Qureshi introduced the speakers. The guest speaker Mr Muhammad Clark gave an inspiring talk about Islamic teachings and values. Mr Clark, father of 4, a revert and a geophysicist with a Bachelor in Medieval History, Philosophy and Arabic from the University of Sydney and a Masters of Islamic Studies from the University of Melbourne, spoke about the importance of bringing up children and to inculcate in them the great moral character. Such children would respect and service parents when they get old. Mr Zahid Jamil of SAMAA emphasized the need for elders to register themselves with My Aged Care so that their needs can be assessed. Myagedcare is the starting point to access
Australian Government funded services. He said that our community elders show extreme reluctance in telling us their needs which become a hindrance in arranging services for them. He said SAMAA has arrangements with Uniting, one of the biggest service providers as well as IWAA, a Muslim service provider. However many seniors miss out on services they are qualified for due to them not accessing the appropriate channels. Mr Jamil also spoke about Gallipoli Nursing Home in Auburn with whom SAMAA has signed an MoU recently. Gallipoli Home is the first aged care facility in Sydney built by a Muslim institution to fulfill the needs of Muslim & culturally diverse elders. Until now there were no aged care homes that adequately catered for the specific needs of our culturally diverse Muslim community. Its staff speak Turkish, Arabic, Urdu, Bangla and Hindi, to cater for over 10 different cultural communities. Gallipoli Home and SAMAA wish to work together to support each other in providing assistance and support to the local South Asian elders. Mr Jamil said that admission in Gallipoli Home may need a refundable bond amount but that should not deter seniors needing quality care. Mrs Shaheen Aleemullah and Mrs Mona Zahid conducted an entertaining quiz competition for seniors who received prizes for the correct answers. The event concluded with much appreciation from seniors and other attendees who had a great outing on the day. The next SAMAA event is the Mehfil-e-Qawwali which will be held at Bankstown Sports Club Theatre on Sunday 7 April 2019. This theatre is a state of art facility with ultra-modern acoustics. The performers at the upcoming event, Fanna Fi Allah group have mastered the art of Qawwali through years of rehearsals in the subcontinent and performing tours around the world.
Usman Malik More than $150,000 were raised in cash and pledges at a Sydney fundraising dinner attended by over 300 guests on Sat 2 February organised by Islamic Forum for Australian Muslims (IFAM). Queanbeyan mosque is another mosque building project of IFAM and is located in Queanbeyan, a suburb in the outskirts of Canberra only 15 kilometres away from National Parliament of Australia with growing numbers of Muslims residences. The respectable renowned speaker Shaikh Abdul Ghani gave an inspiring speech at the fundraising dinner. He reminded the audience that Allah has called on all Muslims to spend in His path and a true believer is always seeking some opportunity where he can serve to increase his reward. This is because his focus is on the Judgement day when there will be dire need of hasnaats (good deeds). So, for this purpose, believers run towards good deeds rather than acting slowly with the opportunity missed sometimes. He said all our belongings and wealth are the blessings and bounties of Allah and came to us with mercy of Allah. This is just Allah who gives capabilities, opportunities and health to any individual to earn more which is in fact a test. He requested all the guests in a sincere and devoted way to spend in the way of Allah before it’s too late. Brother Bilal from IFAM ACT described the current status of this project. He told the audience that in first phase of construction an estimated amount of $900,000 is required and they have already collected $600,000. He thanked all Sydney siders for extending their help and support for the project. Brother Rab Nawaz from Sydney con-
ducted this event in a brilliant way. He told the audience that not spending in the way of Allah makes one’s heart closed spiritually which is not something to enjoy fully in this life. He said with open heart one has always more chances of getting better and richer in life. The participants pledged and committed more than $153,000 and offered their full support for this noble cause. May Allah accept their intention and contribution and give them an everlasting reward. At this stage, the construction work has already started with all the maps and designs approved by local authorities. This building is designed for performing religious duties with any social and teaching activities for whole Muslim family. Total amount to build this mosque is estimated around $2.8 million. It is saying of our beloved prophet Muhammad (s) that masjids are the best places on the surface of this earth. This fact comes into realization when we see how important the mosques could be in the society when they perform their utmost duty. These are the places where Muslim believers are called five times a day to bow down their heads in front of Allah (swt). This reminds them of their role in this world and makes them surrender their wills and desires to Allah’s will and commandments. Recitation and teaching of Quran helps them purify their hearts from any ill and harmful wishes. Social gatherings with true Islamic preaching help individuals to form a network where everyone cares and loves others, and a harmonious society prevails among people. All Muslim brothers and sisters are requested to donate generously for this noble cause, This will insha Allah be Sadaqa Jaria for them with never ending reward. Account details : Saarban Islamic Trust BSB 062334 A/C 11033525. Usman Malik is the MGM of IFAM. He is based in Sydney.
Mrs Shaheen Aleemullah and Mrs Mona Zahid.
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Amity College celebrates its HSC 2018 results
AMUST Media On Thursday 21 February, Amity College held its annual HSC and ATAR Awards Ceremony to acknowledge and celebrate the outstanding achievements of the graduating class of 2018 in last year’s HSC. In 2018, one in every two Amity College graduates have got an ATAR score of 80+ and, one in every four Amity College graduates got 90+ ATAR scores. Attended by the 2018 Graduates, their families and friends, the current Year 12 students, teachers and principals, as well as local and state politicians the awards ceremony saw generous prizes awarded to students who helped maintain a well-established tradition of academic excellence at the College. Constituting around half the graduating cohort, students who attained an ATAR of 80.00 or over were awarded crystal trophies, gift cards and smart tablet devices. The ceremony began with an address by the Amity College Executive Principal, Mr Deniz Erdogan, who talked about a series
of new goals and opportunities following the HSC and that overcoming each struggle serves to strengthen and prepare one for the next. He likened the graduates to dandelion seeds that have stuck and grown together; the wind will now blow in different directions but they will become their own dandelions regardless of the climate. The Dean
of School of Law from the University of Wollongong, Professor Colin Picker delivered the keynote address giving his advice and explaining to set out on a journey with big aspirations and to take big steps full of courage towards achieving this. The ceremony concluded with the exciting announcements of the Boys High School Dux, Zain Khan (ATAR 96.60), and
Girls High School Dux, Aleyna Akdemir (ATAR 99.45), who each delivered their dux addresses. Amongst the award presenters were Members of Parliament Ms Melanie Gibbons and Mr Paul Lynch who also expressed their gratitude to the school and congratulated the tremendous success of the students. Ms Akdemir, also the College’s overall top achiever, addressed the new Year 12 cohort in her speech explaining the background behind her success, planned hard work. Mr Khan likened the HSC to an IKEA flat pack and that they had the tools and instructions to build as they wish but that they must choose and persevere to construct it. The Year 12 students in the audience listened attentively with one student noting that it was motivating to see such highly-driven students reflect on their experience and that their words of advice were very much appreciated. Established in 1996, Amity College is a leading independent and non-denominational school in Sydney’s south-west which provides K-12 education.
Sydney conference on life of Prophet Mohammad (s) Muhammad Uzair More than 400 people attended a Sydney Seerah conference on Sunday 10 February titled “In the footsteps of our beloved Prophet”, organised by Islamic Circle of Australia and New Zealand (iCAN). The fully sold out, ticketed multicultural community event hosted by the NSW chapter of iCAN was held at Bryan Brown Theatre, Bankstown and addressed by prominent local and interstate speakers. The conference, MC’d by Sheikh Abdullah Hakeem from Rooty Hill started with the beautiful recitation of Quran by Sheikh Yasir Hafiz from Greenacre. World renowned scholar Sheikh Yahya Adel Ibrahim traveled all the way from Perth to enlighten the audience on the topic of “The beauty of the beloved in the face of ugliness”, while Sheikh Alaa El Zokm from Melbourne focused on “Muhammad’s (s) mercy to mankind”. The conference was attended by a large number of community leaders and Imams MARCH 2019 / ISSUE 160
and included Nasheeds, awards and gifts for speech and poster competition for kids and dinner for all. “The main goal of this conference is to revive our love for Prophet Muhammad (s), especially amongst the Australian born Muslim generation,” President of iCAN, Mr Amir Rajput said. The speakers emphasised that being the followers of Prophet Muhammad (s), we must embrace his teachings and way of life, which will not only benefit us as individuals but also help in building a harmonious society. Besides speeches by scholars, Young Muslims Network Australia (YMNA), a subsidiary of iCAN also provided the young generation, opportunity to show their talents. Well-rehearsed and well-researched speeches by youth on Prophet Muhammad’s s) Seerah were highly acknowledged by the attendees at the conference. In addition, colorful posters were made by the children to show their love and admiration towards Prophet Muhammad (s). All kids participating in poster and speech competition were awarded gifts by the President of iCAN as encouragement to continue to be part of such activities.
Photo Credits: Rizwan Bhasha. Nasir Malik, President of YMNA, highlighted the activities of YMNA, which are contributing to nurture Islamic values amongst kids and teenagers. He said, “We need to know what our kids are thinking and we have to join hands to cope with the problems faced by our kids in this society,” he said. The event was supported by community
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organisations and sponsored by a number of businesses and institutions. Muhammad Uzair is an Electrical Engineer by profession, currently pursuing a Doctoral degree from UTS. He is an active community worker and also volunteers for relief work.
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Cross-party parliamentary delegation to Palestine Chris Hayes MP
Mr Chris Hayes MP, Member for Fowler talked on Wednesday 13 February regarding his experiences during the cross-party parliamentary delegation visit to Palestine in January 2019. From a young age, my upbringing caused me to know that the Jews have historically been a much persecuted people. For this reason, I’ve always supported the right of a Jewish state to exist. However, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the hostilities in the Israeli-occupied territories, as well as the lack of progress being made for the creation of a Palestinian state. Palestinians, too, have the right to exist and enjoy statehood. Last month I had the privilege of visiting Palestine as part of a cross-party delegation led by the member for Calwell. For the most part, the visit centered around the Israeli-occupied areas of Palestine and the need for greater efforts by the international community to break the stalemate in the peace process so that a two-state solution may become a reality. Entering Palestine via Jericho, I saw the profound impact that the settlements were having on local Palestinian communities, including critical elements concerning access to water, land, roads, infrastructure and their effect on local economies. Apart from being significant violations of internationally recognised human rights, these issues are an affront to humanity. Discussions must be about ending the occupation based on the 1967 territorial borders. Labor has already determined that, unless
Songs of happiness and sadness Frazia Ali Life is a song of happiness We should sing this song happily Life is a song of sadness We should sing this song happily If we don’t find flowers in our life We should compromise with thorns This is the beauty of life This is the way of life Just like thorns protect flowers Sadness makes life more beautiful Sharpening a pencil clears writing Trimming bushes brings patterns Objectives far away pose challenges We face these with our candle of hope Life is a song of happiness We should sing this song happily Life is a song of sadness We should sing this song happily Frazia Ali is a Pakistani American Muslim single mother. She has two children and lives in San Ramon California, USA. She started writing poetry to spread peace and love through her writing.
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genuine efforts are made in this respect, a move to recognise Palestine is inevitable. My visit to Palestine reinforced the need for a renewed commitment to security. Recognition of Palestine is not a rejection of Israel but rather a recognition of the rights of the people of both Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security. During my visit, I had the opportunity of speaking to Breaking The Silence. This organisation comprises former military members of the Israeli Defence Force who served in the occupied territories. It offered a confronting perspective of the methods and rules of engagement of the IDF, including
the strong relationship between settlers and the members of the IDF in the West Bank. I was told that Israeli settlers are regularly involved in operational activities that involve carrying out violence against Palestinians and their properties. These courageous Israelis who spoke out did so because they are patriots. They strongly believe that Israel’s future security can be guaranteed only by living in peace with their Palestinian neighbours. They emphasised the importance for Israel to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians to reach a two-state solution, noting the implications for peace, democracy and
security if a just solution is not achieved. The nature of the Israel-Palestinian conflict was certainly highlighted in Hebron, where I was taken to visit a number of Palestinian homes. It was particularly disturbing to see that for some the only access they had to their houses was through a back entrance or via an adjacent property of their neighbour’s due to the segregated areas and Israeli-only streets. As Australians, we cannot contemplate this type of discrimination or this level of separation, control and restriction of movement. While the Labor Party has held off recognising Palestine, believing that this is an issue that should be properly part of the final negotiations, the recent escalation of violence and the growth in settlements have seen the balance of power shift disproportionately in favour of the Israeli government, which now seems to lack a genuine commitment to a just settlement. It is very hard to understand how a country based on religious belief can lack such compassion for the rights of others. My visit reiterated the fact that this issue is not one of religion but rather one of human rights. We must continue to ensure that the plight of Palestinians remains firmly in the focus of the international community if we are to work towards progressing lasting peace between these two great states. In the words of Pope Francis: The time has come for everyone to find … the courage to forge a peace, which rests on the acknowledgment by all of the right of two States to exist and to live in peace and security within internationally recognized borders. Mr Chris Hayes MP is the Federal Member for the NSW seat of Fowler and Chief Opposition Whip.
Labor promises fairer fees for money transfers Dr Andrew Leigh MP Every year Australians send billions of dollars overseas to family and friends. This might be taxi drivers working an extra shift to help out somebody who’s fallen on hard times back home. It could be someone who’s working a bit extra in a pharmacy in order to help put a nephew through school. Right now the pricing of remittances is bamboozling. It’s too confusing and it means you get an incredible spread of prices. Australians pay more for remittances than do people in the United States or in Korea. Just to give you some sense of the size of what the fees look like, an Australian who wants to send $1000 overseas will pay according to the World Bank $77 in exchange rate markups and flat fees. One of the problems in this market is competition isn’t working to drive down prices for consumers. That’s because the pricing comes in two parts. There’s a flat fee for the transfer, but there’s also an exchange rate spread. We’ve seen too many providers saying that they’re charging a small fee when what they mean is the flat fee is small but the exchange rate spread is big. I’ve seen this behaviour even by some of our biggest banks that have just faced a royal commission.
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Remittances present special problems because it’s often hard to figure out the true fee. All too often, banks will tell their customers the flat dollar amount, but won’t fess up to how much they’re making from the exchange rate. It’s hard to have a competitive market when customers don’t know what prices they’re actually paying. That’s why Labor is promising to require full fee transparency, where customers are told the total cost of transferring money: both the flat fee and the exchange rate margin. Like mortgage comparison rates, full fee transparency will make it easier for customers to do an apples-to-apples comparison, and quickly find out who’s offering the best deal. Our solution, the policy that’s Australia will get if a Shorten Labor Government is elected, is a policy of full fee transparency. If you’re in the market, transferring money overseas, you have to tell your customers the total charges they will pay for remittances.
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Our plan has been welcomed by the Federation of Ethnic Community Councils of Australia and welcomed by CHOICE. It’s been welcomed by Transferwise, one of the providers in the market that has shown its customers the full fees they’ll pay. As part of Labor’s commitments to work with multicultural communities, this policy emerged from a series of roundtables in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Our plan to save consumers money on remittance fees was developed in consultation with experts in the sector and with people in multicultural communities who didn’t want so much of their hard-earned wages to be eaten up by the fees and charges of financial intermediaries. Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Competition and Productivity. Prior to being elected in 2010, Andrew was a professor of economics at the Australian National University. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences His books include Disconnected (2010), Battlers and Billionaires (2013), The Economics of Just About Everything (2014), The Luck of Politics (2015), Choosing Openness: Why Global Engagement is Best for Australia (2017) and Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Changed Our World (2018). Andrew is a keen marathon runner, and hosts a podcast titled “The Good Life: Andrew Leigh in Conversation”. ISSUE 160 / MARCH 2019
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Will you be my Valentine? AMUST
Philip Feinstein Celebrated on 14 February, Valentine’s Day is often marked by giving gifts to and spending time with loved ones. Valentine’s Day traditions include exchanging gifts, such as chocolates or roses, and a romantic night out on the town. But now it also means giving music instruments! The Music for Refugees organisation decided to spend that special day in Auburn, Sydney, to give away a variety of musical instruments to any refugees who happen to walk by. Manager Philip Feinstein said, “The gift of music instruments helps to improve peoples’ lives as music is the soul to happiness.” With an excess number of instruments in their warehouse, it was decided to take advantage of Valentine’s Day to part with some of them. “The expressions on peoples’ faces is something I never forget,” said Feinstein. Apart from the ongoing stream of onlookers and recipients, SBS-TV was also there on the day to film these exciting moments – they showed the story on their news broadcast that evening. The local papers were also there to record this historical event. “This is not the end” added Feinstein. “Any refugee or asylum seeker can contact us if they want a free music instrument, and if we have it in stock, it will be our pleasure to pass it on.” Music for Refugees has been operating in Australia since 2009 and expanded its operation to African refugees a couple of years ago as well. Anyone wanting more information should see their website www.musicforrefugees. org or their Facebook page for the latest information. Philip Feinstein is a Sydney based writer, musician and activist working for MUSIC FOR REFUGEES www.musicforrefugees.org
Australia ignoring death and suffering of refugees Stephen Langford Apart from the suffering and hopelessness that comes with this endless imprisonment of innocent people who are seeking sanctuary and safety from persecution in Australia. Here are the names of the people who have died, mainly by suicide, on Manus and Nauru. However they met their deaths, they have all been killed by the Australian state over the past six years… Reza Barati, Sayed Ibrahim Hussein, Hamid Kehazaei, Omid Masoumali, Rakib Khan, Kamil Hussain, Faysal Ishak Ahmed, Hamed Shamshi, Rajeev Rajendran, Jahangir, Salim Kyawning, Fariborz Karami. We do not have to be very observant to see that there are no European names. It is simply inconceivable that any European would be treated in the way that we are treating the people who come here as refugees. That tells us something about the policy if there was any doubt about it. I think we should all be standing up against torture (which is what the UN rightly calls what Australia is doing) and for human rights. And we need to fight against racist policies. Refugees are seldom saints. My father wasn’t. And they don’t have to be. They have MARCH 2019 / ISSUE 160
rights, Australia has signed the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. You would never guess it, but Australia has done that. Obviously, we need our own Australian Human Rights Act. We will be following in the dirty footsteps of Caligula in Washington till we stand up for human rights, and pass our own Human Rights Act in Parliament. In January I was caught spray-painting ‘CLOSE THE CAMPS’ on an advertising billboard on a major road near Edgecliff. I go to court at the Downing Centre (near Museum Station) at 9.30am Tuesday 26 February. We will be having an event out the front. I would love someone to play a Middle Eastern instrument in front of the court, to go with the speeches that will be given and the messages read, one from Noam Chomsky. But whether you have an instrument, please come and support us and join the peaceful law-abiding event. We look forward to seeing you. Inside the court, I will read out the names, and talk about all the letters, unanswered, I have written to the MPs and Senators, and to the ABC. How often have I written to the ABC that ‘border protection’ and ‘border security’ are racist terms because refugees are not a threat?
If something or someone is not a threat, then ‘protection’ is the wrong word. I remember my own father. He had to get out of Austria or get killed. He was not Jewish, but actually a (Lutheran) church-going Christian. But that didn’t matter. To the Nazis, his name implied that he was a Jew. With his friend, John Offenberger, he made it to New Zealand. There was only one thing he was not supposed to do, as an ‘enemy alien’. That was, join the New Zealand Air Force. But he did… goodness knows how, but he did. At the end of WWII, the New Zealand RSA (Returned Servicemen’s Association) passed a resolution saying all the refugees should go back to where they came from with what they had when they arrived. My father was angry, very angry. He wrote a letter that was published in the NZ (Wellington) paper the Dominion. He said that the people who voted for that resolution obviously did not know who they were fighting in the War. He wrote, in a nutshell, that the resolution was a Fascist resolution that the Nazis
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would be proud of. And that is what we have here… policies that target and scapegoat refugees. Now, as then, they are Fascist policies that the Nazis would be proud of. Locking up and victimising the most vulnerable people is something that the worst regimes of the last century might have done. But Australia did not count on Behrouz Boochani writing NO FRIEND BUT THE MOUNTAINS: Writing from Manus Prison exposing it and putting a human face to the target of its cruelty and violation of human rights. So please do join us every Friday at 5.30pm at the Queen Victoria statue… Queen Victoria is at least doing something constructive in the world! And you, AMUST readers, will be most welcome, and you will be entertained, when you join us in front of the Downing Centre courts, from 9am onwards, on Tuesday 26th February. For more information, you can phone me on my mobile: 0451 509 232.
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Somalis are not all the same AMUST
Irfan Yusuf
As part of my doctoral studies, I interviewed young Muslims from Sydney. Some of my participants were from the African continent. One young Somali told me about how he was subjected to racism from Arabic-speaking Muslims in Lakemba. I thought of him when reading American Somali Abdi Nor Iftin’s 2008 memoir Call Me American. “Growing up with a huge number of Somali exiles returning from Saudi Arabia, I never understood why my mom and her parents dreamed of living in a place [Madinah] where Somalis are unwelcome. It would be many years before I realized that Somalis are pretty much unwelcome everywhere, and dreams are all we have.” How many Australian Muslims know much about Somalia? Are all Somalis monolithic dark-skinned city-dwellers? Iftin tells us his family was pastoralists from
south-central Somalia. Livestock, not notes and coins, was the currency of his people. Are Somalis overly strict? “In the bush Somali men and women work together, talk freely with each other, and even play games together … My dad had introduced my mom to several games like high jump, sprint running, and chasing dik-diks, the little antelopes not much bigger than a cat. Mom loved all those games. They would hold sticks five feet high, then take turns jumping over them. Mom learned to jump and land without stumbling. She said Dad never beat her at this game. Mom was shy and respectful to her husband, but when
it came to games and fun, she was a fierce competitor.” The 1970s saw a vicious war between Somalia and Ethiopia. It became a proxy war of the greater Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. At first, the Soviets supported Somalia but then swapped sides. The US then entered on the side of Somalia’s military strongman. Things became worse thanks to a terrible drought that killed livestock, the currency for the nomadic population. The author’s parents were displaced and moved to the capital Mogadishu, the first time they had lived in an urban area. People here spoke a different dialect. Mogadishu, on the Indian Ocean coast was a place with cinemas and fancy Italian buildings.
Mogadishu locals made fun of his mother for her accent, for not having memorised the Qur’an and for wearing clothes that had the smell of goat urine. She was also introduced to strange new practices. “The women of Mogadishu were circumcised as children, but nomads don’t practice female genital mutilation.” His mother was pressured as an adult to undergo the procedure with no painkillers. Just the thought of it makes Iftin furious. “It makes me so angry when I think about it. In my job as a medical interpreter in Maine, I often tell new Somali immigrants that they cannot mutilate their daughters in this country, which surprises them. This terrible custom is rooted in ignorance and will only change with education.” Abdi Nor Iftin (2018) Call Me American – A Memoir, Penguin Random House. Irfan Yusuf is a lawyer and an award-winning writer and reviewer. He is a PhD Candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship & Globalisation, Deakin University.
Islamic schools in fundraising top 5 for medical research AMUST Media They say that charity begins at home – but the generosity shown by Australian children over the last 12 months reveals that it may just begin at school! Jeans for Genes has released the Top 10 Fundraising Schools for 2018, and it shows that modern-day kids aren’t just sitting around playing video games – they are making a real difference in the lives of others by raising thousands of dollars to help the scientists at Children’s Medical Research Institute find cures for children with genetic diseases. It seems that the revelation during last year’s campaign that 1 in 20 kids face a birth defect or genetic disease really hit home
when kids realised that includes someone in every classroom! Jeans for Genes’ Head of Fundraising, Andrew Kelly, said more than 12,000 schools have taken part in the campaign since it started 26 years ago. “Schools are the success behind Jeans for Genes,’’ Mr Kelly said. “Together, both in the classroom and in the laboratory, we are working with the aim of giving every child the best start to life. It is a privilege to work in partnership with every school on this important goal, protecting the health of our nation’s greatest treasure: our children.’’ While today’s young people might have to deal with the stereotype of sitting around taking selfies, Mr Kelly said the 2018 fundraising statistics show a different picture. “Giving is one of the most powerful forc-
es we know of to create lasting change,’’ he said. “Children understand this intuitively. Nurturing a mindset and culture of giving is good for the child, the school, and our society at large. “We would not be able to do the important work of research into children’s genetic diseases without the sustained generosity of our partner schools.’’ Jeans for Genes was established in 1994 by Children’s Medical Research Institute to fund revolutionary genetic research to better diagnose, understand, and treat conditions affecting kids, including rare genetic disorders, cancer, epilepsy and birth defects. This year, Jeans for Genes Day will be on Friday, 2 August but you can help raise money in the name of 1 in 20 Aussie kids any time. Sign up your school now and start
planning fun events, like a blue cake stall, movie night, or daring denim fashion parade. 1. Penrith Anglican College, Orchard Hills $5,307 2. Malek Fahd Islamic School, Greenacre $4,532 3. Al Noori Muslim School, Greenacre $4,400 (Total raised: $12,585) 4. Normanhurst Boys High School, Normanhurst $3,411 5. Inaburra School, Bangor $3,357
Sukoon Quteifan
All human are equal in the sight of Allah regardless of their gender, colour, race or nationality. Allah (SWT) says in his Holy Quran: “O mankind, indeed We have created you all from a male and a female, and We have made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another. Verily the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the most Godfearing of you. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.” Surat Al-Hujurat [49:13]. Sukoon Quteifan is a graphic designer and illustrator. She is the creator and the illustrator of “Sukoon Al Quloob Peace of Hearts”, an Islamic Cartoons facebook page. Sukoon is based in Sydney, Australia.
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Before 1770: Discovering Australia’s Muslim history Continued from page 1 in terms of the Australian Muslim identity. It allows Muslims to draw strength from such a relationship and realise that Islam is no stranger to the first peoples of this land.” “Australia has a vast rich history. Aboriginal people have been on this land for sixty to eighty thousand years and are the world’s oldest continuing culture,” Sheikh Wesam further added. The event was also attended by special guest and author Professor Regina Ganter stated, “That Macassan Muslim contact predating the arrival of the British on the Australian continent is not disputed.” She further added, “Muslims are now arguably the most widely debated and feared segment of the community, but they are also its most long-standing non-Indigenous segment.” The incredibly moving and inspiring short film shared many surprising scientifically proven facts which demonstrate the peaceful relationship between the Makassans and the Yolngu clan who treated each other with friendship and respect over many centuries. Following the screening, the community had plenty of questions for the panel around the strategy moving forward, using this film as a valuable resource in schools and to continue this beautiful friendship between Muslims and the First Peoples based on our shared history. Sheikh Wesam ended the discussion with a quote from Dr John Hunter, an Aboriginal Elder from Sydney, “Now that you understand that you’re family and that you have
Sold out screening of BEFORE 1770, Melbourne.
AMUST
Wisdom Dr Reginald Naulty
It may be found in quietness when the heart rests and messages of peace drift in from the heart`s hinter land, whatever that mystery is, whatever spirit-natured reality exists beyond our soul`s walls, if there are such at all. Perhaps there are spirits there whose thoughts we share, kindred, who are waiting to see the good blooming. Dr Reginald Naulty, originally from Adelaide, has taught at Charles Sturt University and has been a prolific writer since 1972.
the responsibility, what will you do to support your family?” Before 1770 is a must watch for all Australians and a valuable resource for all Australian schools. Gulhan Eryegit Yoldas is on the advisory board for ECCV Gambling Harm project. She’s an active member of Whittlesea Inter-
faith Network and currently works as the Community Engagement Facilitator for Al Siraat College. Gulhan has a robust history of advocacy for Interfaith dialogue & building resilient, compassionate communities. She is passionate about empowering and developing Muslim youth as spokespeople for their communities.
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School Governance Board workshop at WGS Zia Ahmad The Western Grammar School organised a half day Board Members Governance training on Saturday 23 February at its school premised attended by four of its five Board members. The training was provided by Mr Chris Duncan, Division Head: Governance from The Association of Independent Schools of NSW Ltd (AIS). Mr Duncan has long experience as an educationist, where he has been principal of a number of schools, including Jewish, Islamic and other independent schools. Just like a public officer in a non-profit organisation, The Board of Governors is ultimately responsible for the management of the school and legally responsible to the government for is successful operations. During the face to face workshop session, Mr Duncan highlighted two major aspects that the Board is responsible for, namely Risk Management and Strategy. Risk management does not simply mean avoiding of taking the risk, otherwise, the opportunities to grow are lost. Risk Management entails the culture, processes and structures that are directed towards the effective management of potential opportunities and adverse effects. A simple definition of strategy is “its a collection of actions that add value”. However strategic planning in schools is moving away from traditional business models towards a ‘strategic thinking’ approach. Mr Duncan emphasised that the school boards should spend at least half their time during board meetings in strategic thinking focussing on long term strategic planning. He pointed out that the school board members are unpaid volunteers but have a lot of responsibility to obtain the right information from the school management and ensure that the risks are well managed. Western Grammar School is based in Plumpton, Western Sydney with the vision to provide a well-rounded education suited to MARCH 2019 / ISSUE 160
Members of the School Governance Board, WGS at governance workshop: From left, Mr Fiaz Qureshi, Mr Subhan Ali (Chair), Mr Chris Duncan (Trainer), Mr Irfan Afzal (Principal), Mr Zia Ahmad, Mr Wazad Mohammed.
the cultural and historical framework of the current living environment in Australia and to empower and equip the future generations to meet the challenges of today’s evolving and highly competitive world. Starting in March 2012 with only 8 students across Kindergarten to Year 4 and in a very short space of time now boasts a population of more than 300 students with its first batch of Year 12 graduating at the end of 2018. The School now has a reasonably sound infrastructure with an increasing number of devoted teachers and with a long waiting list of students wishing to enroll but limited by the number of classrooms. A new building complex is under construction to be completed by the beginning of Term 2 which will give a boost to the school facilities during 2019.
WGS principal, Mr Irfan Afzal helping with construction of the new School building before school hours.
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Can Judges be totally objective in their views and judgments? Javed Jamil The appointment of 5-judge bench in the Indian Supreme Court on Babri Masjid/Ayodhya case has rightly been criticised by one of the parties for its non-representation of any Muslim in the panel. The counter argument given in response is that Judges are just judges and cannot be doubted regarding their impartiality. Does that argument hold true? Already, one of the judges had to take back his name following the argument that he had once appeared in the Court on behalf of a Chief Minister who campaigned actively in favour of Mandir. Can the judges be expected to be wholly objective in their judgment? If this was the case, why in the Triple Talaq judgment, the Muslim judge was against the majority verdict? When it comes to purely criminal and civil matters not involving any ideological issues, judges can of course be expected to deal the case objectively and pronounce judgments according to their reading of the case and the law. But when the ideological issues are involved, it is but natural that their ideological positions will differ. This is not just true for the cases where religious issues are involved or where two communities are involved. This is even truer where issues related to morality and ethics are involved. On issues like alcohol, smoking, liberty of sex, homosexuality, abortions, etc, the decisions of the judges are bound to be influenced by their
personal views. On social and economic issues too, the judgments can differ if the judges have leftist or rightist proclivities. In the US, the judges in the higher courts are in fact appointed on the basis of their known views regarding moral issues, even their proximity to Republican or Democratic viewpoint. Fortunately, till now, no such considerations are taken in the appointment of judges in India. But on many occasions, including the recent protest by some Supreme Court judges, the governmental intervention has been the subject of intense debate. Moreover, judges do not live in isolation. They move in society and are in regular
touch with the media. Their views are bound to be influenced by the trends of the time and the projections in the media. In a world dominated by the forces of economics and politics, their psychology is conditioned into believing in a specific way. Otherwise, what can explain the sudden change of Supreme Court opinion on Homosexuality and Adultery? Previous judgments reflected the impact of Indian religious and cultural values. The latest judgments reflected the perceptional change brought by the forces that seek to commercialise human instincts irrespective of their devastating effect on life, health, family and social peace.
The recent passing of the Bill on the Reservation Quota issue has highlighted the fact that when the interests of the dominant forces are involved, even intense rivalry between different political parties, and even on the verge of the national elections, freezes to zero. As far as I can see, it is highly unlikely that the Act will be undone in the Court, as the judges mostly belong to the same classes that are the beneficiaries of the act. Otherwise, how can one understand the economic criterion given in the act? With all those below Rs 800,000 per annum income eligible for the reservation, where will it leave any chances for the truly poor? While there is no ban on Muslims being the part of the recipients, their chances to get any real benefit are considerably less because the comparatively poorer Muslims will find it hard to compete with the comparatively richer non-Muslims. The future will see even greater tilt in the Judgments towards the libertarian trends. Objectivity is only an ideal, which will continue to be compromised through subjectivity in an ever increasing amount. Dr Javed Jamil is India based thinker and writer with over a dozen books including his latest, “Quranic Paradigms of Sciences & Society” (First Vol: Health), “Muslims Most Civilised, Yet Not Enough” and “Muslim Vision of Secular India: Destination & Road-map”. Other works include “The Devil of Economic Fundamentalism”, “The Essence of the Divine Verses”, “The Killer Sex”, “Islam means Peace” and “Rediscovering the Universe”. He can be contacted at doctorforu123@yahoo.com
Iranian perseverance against US bullying Dr Mohammed Taha Alsalami AM The US President Trump’s administration has cancelled the Nuclear Deal with Iran and imposed severe sanctions against the Islamic Republic and continues to sabotage its progress in the fields of defence, economic well being and advancements in science and technology, and in cohort with Israel and other Middle Eastern regimes is pursuing the policy of regime change with threats of war against Islamic Iran. Why has the United States continued to bully Iran for the last 40 years? Before the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, during the Shah’s era, there were more than 50,000 American citizens working there with the army, in oil fields and other sections The Late Imam Khomeini was the major force helped by the people of Iran behind the fall of the Shah and termination of US hegemony over Iran The Iranians resisted all the atrocities committed by the Shah’s secret intelligence police SAVAK for a long time with great perseverance. The Shah, as he was forced to exile, appointed a new Prime Minister Mr Bakhtiar in order to calm down the situation.
Mr Bakhtiar had the US backing and Major General Robert A Hihzir from the American Army in Europe was sent to Iran to help to prop up the Prime Minister. However, Imam Khomeini swiftly appointed a temporary prime minister, Mr Mahdi Bazargan, considered to be the Islamic Iran’s first prime minister, and therefore Bakhtiar with no support from the people had no choice but to join the Shah in exile. On 11 February 1979, the Iranian people took control of the army, police and all other offices in Iran. America lost one of the most important allies in the region, the Shah of Iran who was also aligned with Israel. The New Islamic State was fiercely independent neither aligned with West nor with East and tried to bring solidarity between the Muslim Ummah. The dramatic action took place with when the students seized the USA embassy in Tehran. This was marked as the most challenging confrontation for Iran with the USA. President Carter of America failed to bring the hostages out of Iran. Using Saddam Hussain, the US waged a full-scale war against Iran in order to defeat the Islamic revolution. This war between Iraq and Iran lasted for eight years from 1980 to 1988. Iran has since been under various sanctions from the USA and others for more than 30 years. Iran today is very different from Shah’s Iran. One of their long term policies has been steadfast support for the Palestinian people. The Israeli Embassy in Tehran was
“The US considers Iran as a thorn in its hegemonistic designs for the Middle East and for its support for Israel.
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US President Donald Trump holds up the executive order on withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership after signing it in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington January 23, 2017. changed to the Palestinian Embassy and till this day they have maintained their consistent support for Palestine. The US considers Iran as a thorn in its hegemonistic designs for the Middle East and for its support for Israel. Hence it’s ongoing enmity with Islamic Iran that is destabilising the Middle East. Dr Alsalami, professionally a Senior Pathology Scientist is the President of the Iraqi
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Islamic Council of Australia. In 2003 Dr Alsalami was a recipient of the Centenary Medal while in 2010, he was made a member of the Order of Australia for services to the community, particularly through roles assisting refugees and migrants. He has continued to work intensively as a human rights activist, liaising with the Australian government and the wider community for the past three decades. ISSUE 160 / MARCH 2019
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Saudi state implicated into Khashoggi killing: UN experts Abu Anees The UN human rights investigator Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard leading the international inquiry into the murder of Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi has obtained conclusive evidence implicating the Saudi government for the crime, calling it “a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia”, in a statement released on Thursday 7 February. The interim report comes after a weeklong investigation in Turkey by her team of three international legal and forensic experts. The final report to the UN Human Rights Council will be presented in June 2019. Saudi Arabia also “seriously undermined” Turkey’s efforts to investigate Khashoggi’s killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. “Woefully inadequate time and access was granted to Turkish investigators to conduct a professional and effective crimescene examination and search required by international standards for investigation,” Callamard said. Jamal Khashoggi, an inside Saudi jour-
Jamal Khashoggi.
Pell found guilty of sexual offences
nalist turned critic who commented on the policies pursued by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2 2018. His body has yet to be found.
US intelligence agencies believe Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered an operation to kill Khashoggi because he was a critic of his policies, and say his body was dismembered and removed to a location still publicly unknown.
has taken an excellent step to help them reclaim their dignity.” After heading a meeting which discussed how money laundering could be curbed in the country, PM Khan tweeted: “I have issued instructions today that Afghan refugees who are registered can open bank accounts and from now onwards they can participate in the formal economy of the country. This should have been done a long time ago.” “I commend Prime Minister Imran Khan, the government and the people of Pakistan for taking this important step in support of Afghan refugees — a forward-looking, generous gesture of solidarity of global significance,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a statement. UNHCR Director for Asia and the Pacific Indrika Rawatte and UNHCR Representative in Pakistan Ruvendrini Menikdiwela said that Pakistan had generously hosted millions of Afghan refugees for decades and should be applauded for
this latest decision. “This is a bold demonstration of humanitarian leadership in a world that is not inclusive,” Mr Rawatte said. Ms Menikdiwela said that opening of bank accounts would allow refugees’ extended family members — living abroad — to send remittances through formal banking channels which would help increase the foreign exchange reserves in Pakistan.
Media Scan Ainullah
Palestinians pray in long-closed part of Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty of sexual offences in Australia, making him the highest-ranking Catholic figure to receive such a conviction. Pell abused two choir boys in the rooms of a Melbourne cathedral in 1996, a jury found. He had pleaded not guilty. The verdict was handed down in December, but it could not be reported until now due to legal reasons. Pell is due to face sentencing hearings from Wednesday. He has lodged an appeal against his conviction. As Vatican treasurer, the 77-year-old cardinal was one of the Church’s most powerful officials. His trial was heard twice last year because a first jury failed to reach a verdict. A second jury unanimously convicted him of one charge of sexually penetrating a child under 16, and four counts of committing an indecent act on a child under 16. MARCH 2019 / ISSUE 160
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Agnes Callamard.
Amnesty, UNHCR hail Pakistan move for Afghan refugees The Amnesty International (AI) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have lauded the government’s decision of allowing the registered Afghan refugees to operate bank accounts in the country. Soon after the decision was announced by PM Imran Khan through a message on Twitter, the Amnesty International South Asia praised the government’s move. The AI said in a Twitter message: “At a time when much of the world has turned its back on refugees, Pakistan’s government
UMMAH Fake Sheikh Tawhidi visit to India ushers controversy
For the first time in 16 years, Palestinians on Friday 22 February prayed at an area by the Al-Rahma gate, located inside occupied East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque complex. It is a passageway of gates and a stairway leading to a hall that had been closed by Israeli authorities for years and was reopened on Friday by Muslim religious officials. The hall is located a short distance from Al-Aqsa Mosque itself. The Israeli authorities closed the area in
2003. In 2017, an Israeli court upheld the closure order. But on Friday, the Religious Endowments Authority, a Jordan-run agency mandated with overseeing East Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites, announced the reopening of the mosque after a 16-year hiatus. Religious Endowments Authority Director Sheikh Abdul Azim Salhab opened the doors of the hall, and worshipers performed Friday prayers.
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Mohamad Tawhidi with BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy. Mohamed Ainullah Australian Fake Sheikh Mohamad Tawhidi is currently visiting India creating controversy with his inflammatory comments against Muslims in general and Pakistan in particular, receiving red carpet treatment by Islamophobic media personalities and leadership of the Hindu nationalists party BJP. He has been invited to visit India by Zee TV network to attend ‘Arth’, a cultural festival attended by more than 250 writers, scholars, artisans and artists from India and abroad. Even before he landed in India, self-proclaimed Imam Mohamad Tawhidi has became a subject of contention. Tawhidi’s remarks have found favour with the Hindutva brigade and right-wingers in India. The ideological Right have showered him with praise promoting his views on ‘Islam’ considering him as self hating Muslim. He has been spewing hatred against Pakistan. In a recent interview with The Times of India, Tawhidi said that “Pakistan’s version of Islam is amended to fit the narrative of the government and justify its wrongdoings.” On Thursday 14 February, Tawhidi held a meeting with BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy in New Delhi. Tawhidi has also been praised by several people online, including right-leaning American Hindu author David Frawley. He has also been praised by another controversial figure, self hating Indian Muslim media anchor, Tarek Fatah, for attack on mainstream Muslims. Shujaat Ali Quadri, National President of Muslim Students Organisation of India, had Tweeted: “We oppose and reject Imam Tawhidi ‘s arrival in India. He is nothing but a puppet of the West and Israel.” Indian Muslim’s peak body representing both Sunni as well as Shia Muslims, the Majlis Ulama-e-Hind had expressed its disapproval over Tawhidi’s visit and had written a letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The organisation had also slammed Zee TV network for inviting him for ‘Arth’. The letter written by Maulana Kalbe Jawad Naqvi, general secretary Majlis Ulama-e-Hind, stated that the so-called leader has been invited by a channel to India. This man is masquerading as a scholar while he is not related to Shi’ism or Islam, because his photos, videos, books and speeches all are against the teachings of Islam and Shi’ite belief. Saying that inviting such a person is like disrupting the peace of India, Maulana Jawad urged the government to put a ban on all his programmes.
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The social and political reform of the Prophet Dr John Andrew Morrow The Arabian society in the 6th century CE in which Prophet Muhammad (s) grew up was devoid of political organization. People were divided into warring tribes. Tribalism, racism, and prejudice were rampant. The rich exploited the poor. The powerful enslaved the weak. Women were viewed as sexual objects and treated as chattel. They could be brutalized without mercy. With the exception of small numbers of Jews and Christians, along with the monotheistic Hanifs and a segment of Zoroastrians, the overwhelming majority of the population was pagan, animistic, idolatrous, and polytheistic. Unlike the Hindus, however, the Arab idolaters did not believe in life after death or reincarnation. Their real religion, however, was materialism and hedonism. If Arabia lived in darkness, the situation outside of the Peninsula was hardly brighter. During Prophet Muhammad’s (s) time, there were two superpowers, Byzantium and Persia. Besides waging war with one another directly, they also opposed one another by means of proxies. Growing up, the young orphan was drawn to nature where he contemplated the wonders of creation. After marrying his first wife, Khadijah, he started to spend long periods of time in the seclusion of a cave on the outskirts of Mecca where he sought spiritual solace and a solution to the problems afflicting his society. After years of seeking, Prophet Muhammad (s) received revelation and an answer to all his questions. Prophet Muhammad (s) preached that
God was One. This belief in unity was the be all and end all of Islam and would pervade all of its aspects. Since God was One it signified that Humanity was one. While in Mecca, the Prophet’s priority was preaching Divine Unity and Human Unity. He called for an end to racism, tribalism, classism, and sexism. He insisted that all human beings were created equal and that superiority could only be attained by striving for piety. He condemned the evils of slavery and advocated on behalf of slaves of every race, religion, and ethnicity. He sided with the meek, oppressed, and downtrodden. He taught that greatness was not in having but in giving and, in turn, gave all of his wealth away to help the poor. Prophet Muhammad (s) called for the emancipation of women and demanded that they be treated with love, honor, respect, and dignity. He denounced the sacrifice of children to pagan gods and the burying alive of baby girls. Although the Prophet gained a solid following among the wretched of the earth, he was opposed by the elites of the age who viewed his unitarian and egalitarian vision as a threat to their selfish interests. The tribal leaders tried to buy him. When that failed, they tried to get him to compromise on matters of principle. When that failed, they tried to pressure him economically. When that failed, they resorted to intimidation, violence, and isolation. Having exhausted all avenues, the leaders of Mecca attempted to have him assassinated. Prophet Muhammad (s), however, was a brilliant strategist who made alliances with members of other faith communities who sympathized with his ideals. He reached out to Jews, Samaritans, Christians, and Zoroastrians. He even extended an olive branch to pagan Arabs.
Steps to Success: Setting goals STEPS TO SUCCESS: PART 1 Umar Khan Success. It seems to be something that everyone strives for – but at its essence what is success? According to Oxford Dictionary, success means “The accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” It is a very vague definition – but this suits the word, as success is relative. It is the attainment of your goals, aims, dreams and purposes. What you may quantify as success, someone else might not. For example, success may be academic for some, sporting success for others; whilst yet others may measure success in financial terms or even artistically. So, how can we be successful? Goals As Marie Curie said “We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.” The first step to achieving success is to set goals. These goals are going to specific to what you deem a success. If you want to be successful in any field, you need to set goals for yourself and put them down on paper. Your goals must be clear and well defined so that you know exactly what you are aim-
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ing for. Remember you need goals to show you the way to define precisely where you want to end up. When setting goals, you should also ensure that they are measurable. Don’t just set a goal by saying I will do better at maths, set a goal of achieving more than 85% in your maths tests throughout the year. It is also important to remember that goals are attainable - that they are possible to achieve. If you set a goal that you have no hope of achieving, you will only demoralize yourself and erode your confidence. Likewise, it is important to resist the urge to set goals that are too easy. You need to be able to set a realistic yet challenging goal, bringing you real success. Goals should be relevant to what you want to do in your life. They need to be personal. And lastly, goals need to be time bound. When you are working on a deadline, your sense of urgency increases and achievement will come that much quicker. As Muhammad Ali said, “What keeps me going is goals.” Setting goals also help you in your next step to success – Focus. Next issue: Steps to Success Part 2 Umar Khan is a recent IBDP graduate, now attending Macquarie University and is based in Sydney, Australia.
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His diplomatic efforts were a phenomenal success and he signed dozens of treaties. The Messenger of Allah sent some of his followers as refugees to the Christian Kingdom of Abyssinia. He made allies with Yemenite Jews and the Christian monks from the Sinai. He had even secretly accepted an invitation to relocate to Yathrib, a city to the north of Mecca, where he was unanimously acclaimed as its leader. The city in question was divided equally between Jews and Arab pagans. Muslims merely numbered in the hundreds. While most of the people did not profess Islam as a religion, they believed in the social and economic principles preached by the Prophet. The city itself came to be known as Medina al-Nabi or The City of the Prophet. Eventually, as they experienced the benefits of Islam, most of the city’s population was converted to the cause. Shortly after arriving in Medina, Prophet Muhammad (s) gathered the tribal elders and, in consultation with the broader community, produced the first written constitution in the history of humanity. Known as the Constitution of Medina, it established the creation of an Ummah or Motherland, a modern-style state, and essentially introduced the concept of citizenship. Race, religion, tribal affiliation, kinship, and class were no longer determining factors in matter of identity. Citizens were now bound to the Ummah or State. It was a tolerant, diverse, and pluralistic society organized into semi-autonomous
religious communities which governed themselves according to their own faith traditions. Muslims were judged according to Islam. Christians were judged according to Christianity. And Jews were judged according to Judaism. And while the Prophet could only preach during the persecution in Mecca, speaking truth to power, cultivating solidarity, and engaging in charitable endeavors, in Medina, with the power of the people and the State behind him, he was able to turn theory into practice and ethical principles into laws. The Constitution of Medina and the Covenants of the Prophet, which are precursors to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Bill of Rights, are testimonies to the power the propelled Islam. By the time Prophet Muhammad (s) passed away, in 632 CE, Islam had spread throughout all Arabia and was about to spread like lighting throughout the Middle East, Persia, North Africa, and beyond. Dr John Andrew Morrow received his PhD from the University of Toronto, where he studied Hispanic, Native, and Islamic Studies. He worked as a university professor for two decades. After reaching the rank of Full Professor, he retired from academia to devote himself entirely to scholarship and service. Along with Charles Upton, he directs the Covenants Initiative, lectures around the world, and acts as a religious and political advisor to world leaders.
Ibn Khaldun, Arabic and the Qur’an Nadia Selim In recent years, Muslim teachers and learners of Arabic, have become focused almost solely on the Holy Qur’an as a source of language learning. However, in doing so, rather than become more faithful to Islamic educational thought we seem to have strayed from the positions of well-known scholars such as Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406). Ibn Khaldun explained in the Muqaddimah that the Arabic of the Qur’an, being divine and inimitable, cannot be emulated by learners or indeed anyone else. Therefore, the increased focus on it as a means of acquiring language ability is impractical. Ibn Khaldun, having conducted ethnographic research on Arabic teaching and learning in the Islamic empire went onto explain that the Moroccan peoples (Maghreb) focused on the Qur’an alone and as a result could not develop a good command of the Arabic language, whereas the Spanish
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(Andalusia) grasp of the language was far superior because of their inclusion of other readings. He qualified this with a statement that the religious knowledge of the Spaniards was not as advanced but was sufficiently supported by their knowledge of Arabic, which gifted those who wished to pursue their religious study with the tools they needed to do so. In fact, Ibn Khaldun highlights that the Judge Ibn al-‘Araby preferred the Spanish (Andalusian) position which prioritized Arabic and poetry as he lamented the fact that many children were reading texts without comprehension. To learn more about the ground-breaking thought of Ibn Khaldun in the space of language learning, you can read a recently published academic paper that compiles and encapsulates his arguments entitled: Arabic, Grammar and Teaching: An Islamic Historical Perspective. Nadia Selim based in Adelaide is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Islamic Thought & Education (CITE), University of South Australia. ISSUE 160 / MARCH 2019
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Final report of Royal Commission: A soft landing on banks FINANCE Dr Abul Jalaluddin Commissioner Kenneth Hayne recently handed down the final report of the Royal Commission into the misconduct of banks and financial institutions. In this report, there was no gore for shameful behaviour heard, no structural separation of the banks, no overhaul of the regulators and no head on the sticks. Yet, the over 950-page report made 76 recommendations with far-reaching implications for the financial services industry and its clientele. It would improve commercial behaviour, customer service, lower fees, change corporate culture and enhance governance in the industry. The key recommendations will encompass the major segments of the financial services industry, including mortgage, superannuation, financial planning advice, insurance, agricultural finance as well as regulators for Australian banking and finance. Mortgage Brokerage In the $1.6 trillion mortgage broking market, banks and other lenders pay $2.4 billion a year to mortgage brokers as an up-front commission for introducing new borrowers. Mortgage brokers represent over 20,000 businesses and they organise more than half of all new home loans. Commissioner Hayne recommended to: (a) make borrowers rather than lenders pay up-front commission to the mortgage broker for their services, (b) ban lenders from paying trail commissions to mortgage brokers for new loans and (c) ask lenders to require mortgage brokers to act in the best interests of the intend-
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ing borrower, not the lender/bank providing the loan. Superannuation Australia has a $2.8 trillion superannuation industry. Over 90 percent of Australians are covered by the superannuation system and there are over 10 million unintended multiple superannuation accounts which are fee-drainers on these accounts. The report recommended that: (a) a single default super fund for each employee. All multiple accounts would be stapled to a single default account, (b) advice fees would be banned to be deducted from MySuper accounts, (c) advice fees for non-MySuper accounts would be prohibited in most cases and (d) heavy-handed selling of add-on superannuation products to be abolished. Financial Advice In 2018, the financial advice industry consisted of over 20,000 entities. It generated $4.7 billion of revenue and made a profit of $1.6 billion. The total wage bill of this industry was $2.1 billion. The Hayne Commission recommended that: (a) a new regulatory system for financial advisers is created, with all advisers required to be registered. A single regulatory body would oversee the system, (b) all banks be required to report “serious compliance concerns” about individual financial advisers to ASIC on a quarterly basis and (c) grandfathered provisions of conflicted remuneration in the Future of Financial Advice legislation should be repealed as soon as possible. Insurance The insurance industry is made up of various segments such as general insurance (vehicle as well as home and content), health insurance and life insurance. This industry provides valuable protection for assets,
health, and lives of Australians. The behaviour of players in this industry has a high impact on the lifestyle of all Australian policyholders. To improve the performance of this sector, the Royal Commission has the following recommendations: (a) heavy-handed selling of insurance products be banned, (b) funeral expense insurance policies are defined as a financial product, bringing it under the oversight of ASIC, (c) handling and settlement of insurance claims be defined as a financial service and (d) Impose a cap on the commission that can be paid to car sellers for add-on insurance products. Agriculture Australia has a large agricultural sector which consists of grain, rice, fruit, outdoor & undercover vegetable, cattle, shearing, dairy, cotton, poultry, fishing, forestry, horse farming, sugar cane, turf growing and agricultural support services. In relation to the agricultural sector, Mr Hayne recommended to: (a) establish a national scheme to mediate farm debts, (b) require banks not to charge default interest on loans secured by farmland in an area declared to be in drought or subject to other natural disasters, (c) have banks ensure managers of distressed farm loans are experienced agricultural bankers and (d) recognize that appointment of receiv-
ers on a farm loan is a remedy of last resort. Banking Regulators: ASIC and APRA The Royal Commission recommended to: (a) retain ASIC and APRA but have them overseen by a new independent authority that would assess the two regulators to ensure they are carrying out their responsibilities, (b) have ASIC overhaul its approach to enforcement, with a focus on court action rather than infringement notices and (c) have ASIC continue its annual reporting of breaches of financial service regulations but in future name the companies rather than just the type of breach. The final report has referred 24 large companies to regulators (ASIC and APRA) for possible criminal or civil action. These companies include Suncorp, ANZ, NAB, CommInsure, Allianz, AMP and ClearView. It also recommended the establishment of a Compensation Scheme of last resort for those unable to receive financial recompense from their institutions which would be funded by the financial services industry. The report is basically a recommendation to the executive government. Any changes in the industry will need to be implemented through government legislation. Hence, it doesn’t necessarily mean laws will be enacted exactly as the Royal Commission final report recommends.
Think of it as AirBnB for Parking. Parkable’s Queensland General Manager Mike Davis explains the merger in The Courier Mail’s February 2019 edition: “Parkable already has an app and other tech solutions,” Mr Davis said. “They were looking to expand internationally and we have knowledge of the local market and can give them accelerated entry into Australia.” Deloitte Fast 50 winner Parkable lets users find and pay for residential and commercial car park spaces on their smartphone, making parking easier and cheaper, and providing a return to the owners of car parks.
The Auckland-based company is also developing technology to allow businesses to more efficiently utilise staff carpark spaces. The acquisition of Park Genie means that Parkable now offers more than 1,200 parking locations to its approximately 50,000 users in Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Brisbane. Park Genie customers will migrate to the Parkable platform over the coming months and the company intends to expand around Australia. Parkable CEO Toby Littin says the introduction of Parkable to Brisbane and Queens-
land further develops Australia’s sharing economy and offers new tech solutions for city and business parking.
Dr Abul Jalaluddin is an Islamic Finance expert, taxation advisor and a regular columnist for AMUST. He is based in Sydney.
Innovative parking solution in Australia and NZ Suraya Daly
This new year, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity of embarking on a new journey working for a technology start-up Parkable. Two weeks ago, Parkable, an established sharing economy business successful in New Zealand, merged with Park Genie, a Brisbane parking company. Park Genie has been providing alternative solutions for long-term parking in Brisbane since 2017, offering customers cheaper and easier monthly options than its competition in the CBD and surrounds. As Park Genie’s website states: “Park Genie is the solution to overpriced, stressful parking in Brisbane and grants magical parking wishes every day.” Utilising the now well-known sharing economy, Parkable allows companies and individuals to rent out their empty parking bays and provides staff parking management solutions for enterprises and small businesses. MARCH 2019 / ISSUE 160
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Suraya Daly is a graduate of the Queensland University of Technology in the qualifications of the Graduate Certificate in Creative Industries and a Bachelor of Journalism. She works in start-up business development and has a passion for writing, where she would often hone her creativity by contributing articles which can be found on her blog on www. surayaspeaks.wordpress.com. For enquiries, please reach out to suraya.daly@gmail.com
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Unity Grammar students’ aid trip to Cambodia/Malaysia AMUST
Osman Karolia A team of 18 consisting of Unity Grammar students and alumni, as well as AusRelief personnel, made an incredible effort to travel to Malaysia and Cambodia in January 2019 on a humanitarian aid mission. In a true reflection of community harmony, President of Baytal Zakat, Mr Issam Obeid, Principal of Arkana College, Mr Sam Halbouni and NSW Premier’s Youth of the Year, Bassam Maaliki from U Belong also joined the Unity Grammar/AusRelief team in this spirit of collaboration rather than competition where the team was able to exceed all expectations in the delivery of aid to those in need. The 11 days trip to both countries involved the distribution to Rohingya refugees in Malaysia and others in need in Cam-
bodia of 1534 food packs, each pack feeding a family for a month, 250 school stationary sets and book packs, setting up of 17 water wells and 6 toilet blocks and offer of 7 university scholarships for a year enabling 7 intelligent young people who would otherwise miss out, the chance to pursue a tertiary education. The students were led by Akram Hawchar, a foundation UG student and Unity Grammar first ever school captain, on this incredible journey gaining first-hand rich experience, each paid their own way with the support of sponsors, the school community as well as the wider community. Community service and service learning are essential elements of the Unity Grammar experience for its students. During the Cambodia trip, the students also visited mosques, temples, schools and the genocide museum, which was a Khmer Rouge death camp and where 20,000 people were imprisoned and only 12 left it alive.
The students met 2 of those 12 survivors who now work at the museum telling their story. The Khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million people, almost 40% of whom were from the Muslim minority. Scores of Cambodians were also killed by US carpet bombing during the Vietnam war as US forces were targeting Viet Cong fighters hiding in villages across the border. Many of those killed in those bombings were from the Muslim minority as they were concentrated on the border with Vietnam. The Aus Relief work is largely directed towards the children and grandchildren of these communities now that they now enjoy peace and freedom in the country.
amazing how students mature journalistically from the immersion program. “They learnt more valuable lessons about international reporting on the ground than they ever could have back in the classroom in Australia,” Professor Bebawi said. The Jordan trip was largely funded by The Council for Australian-Arab Relations (CAAR) of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. CAAR administers an annual grant of over $400,000 for programs that grow mutual Arab-Australia understanding, and empower better economic and cultural bonds. Its been a positive investment for Ms Dengate-Harrison.
“You get get stories on TV implying that the whole Middle East is completely devastated from conflict. I got a much deeper understanding by being there. I learned a huge amount. I’m a better journalist now” she said. Mark Evans is head of the School of Communications at University of Technology Sydney. He champions the FCST and its immersion approach to learning. “Having journalists be culturally aware is vital in understanding communities,” he said “The aim is to move journalists away from telling the same stereotypical stories, towards a lens that is more humanistic.”
Osman Karolia, based in Sydney, is currently the Head of Community Engagement, at Unity Grammar Islamic School and Vice Chair of Islamic Schools Association of Australia.
Journalism students challenge stereotypes Wendy John Eleanor Dengate-Harrison’s mum didn’t want her traveling to the Middle East. Media portrayals of the region’s security issues meant Eleanor’s mother didn’t even fly over the Middle East. But Eleanor jumped at the chance to go to Jordan as part of a Foreign Correspondent Study Tour (FCST) run by the University of Technology Sydney. “It was the only way I could get to the Middle East without damaging my relationship with my Mum,” said Eleanor with a grin. Eleanor travelled with six other University of Technology Sydney (UTS) journalism students in November. The students worked as foreign correspondents producing numerous multi-media stories about Jordan. “It was full-on” said Eleanor who also works at 2SM radio. “We did some sightseeing but basically worked on stories around the clock,” she said. “It’s unbelievable how much journalism can be done in 10 days with the right support,” she said. Professor Saba Bebawi, Jordanian Australian and UTS academic, has been leading the FCST since 2015. She said it’s always
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Eleanor Dengate Harrison (on left) filming a story on the endangered oryx at Shaumari Wildlife Reserve.
AUSTRALASIAN MUSLIM TIMES
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The UTS Foreign Correspondent Study Tour to Jordan was the highlight of Eleanor Dengate-Harrison’s year. Mark Evan’s hopes for the program have been realised through the 2017 FCST with SBS publishing several of the student’s stories; a monk making hearing aids for Syrian refugees, the resilience of Red Sea corals to global warming, and an Iraqi artist’s message of love in his sculptures. The stories challenge stereotypical news coverage of the Middle East and connect audiences with different facets of Jordanian life. Eleanor Dengate-Harrison’s mum has also shifted her views of the Middle East and ultimately feels a bit envious of her daughter’s experience in Jordan. “Mum’s a big ‘foodie’ so I just kept sending food photos,” Eleanor said. “And I came back in one piece and kept raving about how amazing it was. She was extremely jealous.” The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) ran 2018 Foreign Correspondent Study Tours to Jordan, Philippines and India. https://www.facebook.com/fcstudytour/ Wendy John is a freelance journalist with a passion for planet Earth and it’s people. She’s currently studying a Master of Advanced Journalism at UTS. ISSUE 160 / MARCH 2019
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TOP 6 Muslim Memes
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TOP 7 Tweets
MBS and China
App Review: Go Pray!
Zahid Alam Go Pray! is a service developed by the community for the community. Go Pray! with the dream to provide a platform to share information about mosques and musallahs so that we can reconnect with our places of worship is here. With the range of app online I decided to download Go Pray app after been recommended by a friend. After you download you will be presented with four tabs “now”, “times”, “mosques” and “settings” Now: The now tab gives you a quick snap shot of the next prayer time along with the list of nearby mosques and musallah with an approximate distance and prayer time with the help of your location. Times: has the list of prayer time with Gregorian and Islamic date together with the list of timings having the last milestone highlighted. This tab also gives you an option to search mosques and times in suburb nearby. Mosques: with a snapshot on the “now”
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tab “mosques” tab gives a comprehensive list of Mosques and location distance and the next salat time. You also have an option to view the locations plotted over google map which is a cool feature. Settings: As most apps offer, Go Pray also offers a settings menu to customise your app according to your need. Overall I have found this app suitable for my needs. Since Go Pray app is developed by the community for the community, the developers rely on your help to keep the data up to date. So what you can do? Well, download the app and use it and maintain the prayer timings around you. Spread the word Like the app and share Go Pray! with your friends. www.facebook.com/goprayapp Zahid Alam is a Project Manager in Telstra and AMUST correspondent based in Sydney. He immigrated to Australia in 2005. He holds a Masters of Engineering Management degree from the University of Technology Sydney and a diploma in Electronics Engineering from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India.
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