Big Victory for Muslim Women

A BIG VICTORY FOR WOMEN

File Phot0: First Female Judge in Qatar 

Not only Muslims but Hindus, Christians, Jews, Sikhs and all others talk about equality of women, but many don’t practice what they preach.   “What does she know” “Her place is home” and invariably her knowledge is discounted. Religions were not the culprits, it was the men who could not stand women being equal and have resorted to a whole lot of demeaning things to feel secure.  Until 1919 women were considered a property even here in the United States, we have come a long way and a whole lot more to go.  I have heard shameful comments like “A woman can preach in my church over my dead body.” Many conservative men and even women had a problem with Hillary Clinton being a woman president.

Prophet Muhammad released women from the bondage of men, when he declared that men and women will be treated equally by God. Her husband is not responsible for her deeds, she is, and she is free to own property, own business, marry and divorce out of her free will. It was revolutionary at that time and the world understood that 1300 years later. However, a few Muslim majority nations have gone against the very teachings of Islam. The invention of Sharia among Muslims really pushed back the egalitarianism of Islam, Sharia is bidda (invention) and we need to un-bidda it with common sense or God's laws of equality, justice, freedom and harmony.

Being an interfaith wedding officiant, I do a lot of research in matrimonial sites, women in general seem to seek approval of men, sort of pandering and usually playing the secondary role in the households.  This needs a change, women need to assert and need to safeguard their rights and not be dictated against their will for common good.

A majority of people in all groups believe and practice equality - that simply means respecting the other person, her opinions and her presence.

Here are 4 items of Good news at: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2017/09/big-victory-for-muslim-women.html

 Saudi Arabia – women can drive now, and their clergy to eat crow

Saudi Arabia has finally taken the good step forward; they have announced that women are permitted to drive in their country.  First of all every man and woman have the same God-given rights to be accountable to their actions, Saudi did not give the right to women, but released back what was usurped from them in the first place.

Here is the information release today, Saudi Arabia lifts ban on women's driving : Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Tuesday issued a royal decree allowing women to drive, ending its status as the only country in the world to impose such a ban. The new rules will take effect starting June 2018. This comes after years of campaigns against the ban that was seen as a violation of women's rights.

To quote Reza Aslan used for another instance, it was a Saudi practice and had nothing to do with Islam. My friends at Fox had falsely projected it as an Islamic practice which I fought with Sean Hannity as not. 

The Saudi Muftis (those who issue fatwas) will fall flat on their faces; they have to eat what they spat.  They had issued funny opinions on many issue.  The other non-sense that needs to go is fatwas against Shias and other Muslims as no Muslim or less of a Muslim.  Allah does not care what you believe, how you worship, as long as you subscribe to the idea that there is one earth, one universe and there is one “whatever” we are accountable to and take care of fellow beings and create harmony in his creation – that is what Islam in a nutshell means.  

 

Indian Muslim Clergy fell flat on their faces

The men claiming to represent Islam in India also fell flat on their faces.  They were adamant that a man has the right to pronounce the word divorce three times in a row and that would end the marriage.  An evil practice that does not exist anywhere in the world, it is neither Islamic nor the Quran supports it.  The men hung on to it, despite innumerable articles, some of them are at www.ShariaLaws.com.

The supreme court of India listened to Muslim women and said that practice must go.  The same Ulema will fall on their face again if they do not abolish the evil practice of Halala and inheritance and child custody laws.

India’s Supreme Court wrecks the Triple Talaq traditionhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indias-supreme-courts-wrecking-ball-wrecks-triple_us_599dac25e4b056057bddd005

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Female Genital Mutilation

The practice of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) will come to a grinding halt, but it still continues in small groups.  Once again it is not an Islamic or Muslim practice as Ayan Hirsi Ali has propagated it to be.  It is practiced by one small sect within the Muslim community, but largely by communities who are Christian and native traditions in Africa.  FGM was legal in America until 1996.

The Doctor that was caught in Michigan in performing FGM is out on a bail of $43 Million.  There is an imam in Fairfax, VA, who believes FGM was allowed in Islam, of course he is barred from practicing now.  I say, the lady doctor who performed FGM and the Imam who said it is Islamic are innocent people – they problem is source of their knowledge – the secondary books in Islam which shamefully many a Muslims have elevated to the level of Quran.  The solution is to establish a commission to study these secondary books and label bad ideas in them and caution the reader about it. Quran is flawless and is a book of guidance to create cohesive societies where no human has to live in fear of the other. Freedoms to live and breathe are its goals.

Articles:
 http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2011/11/female-genital-mutilation-among-bohra.html

Setting the record straight - http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2012/04/mutilating-facts-setting-record.html

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Muslim Woman can Marry a Non-Muslim man -Morocco declares

The problem is same with all groups of people, they don't want their daughters to marry outside their faith or even tradition - but have no problem if their sons marry women of other faiths. United States and Canada are about the only countries where you marry whoever you feel compatible with, such is our freedom.  In India and other nations if you are a movie star or a rich man, no one will stop you but if you are an ordinary citizen, you will be invariably harassed and even killed.   I am sure it happens in other nations, thank God America is the land of the free. You live in the pursuit of your happiness.

Now, the Kingdom of Morocco just declared that their women (Muslim) can marry a non- Muslim. This is a big official announcement in the history of Islam, even though the practice has been around.  Muslims in general are resistant to the change without looking at the reasons why such ruling was “added” in the first place as Quran does not expressly prohibit a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim. nearly 40% of American Muslims and Hindus marry outside their faith, and of course Christians and Jews are about 50%. A day will come, when what you believe, eat, drink or wear does not matter, what would matter is can you be happy with the individual.



 Check this out:  It is a big article - 6000 words - Can a Muslim woman marry a non-Muslim man?  : http://centerforpluralism.com/can-a-muslim-woman-marry-a-non-muslim-man/

And this: http://interfaithmarriages.blogspot.com/2017/09/bill-gates-daughter-is-dating-muslim-guy.html

Mike Ghouse
Center for Pluralism

Teaching Intolerance in Saudi Arabia

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2012/05/teaching-intolerance-in-saudi-arabia.html

NOTE ADDED May 25, 2012 - Apparently this is old News prior to correction, however, I have asked the writers in Saudi Arabia to present the new and improved curriculum, we must be fair, it happened with us, our California text books were wrong about Hinduism, much of it is corrected now. Mike Ghouse
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The following is a report about what is taught in Saudi Arabian schools. It amounts to giving sewer to children as a drink… to ruin their minds and hearts in the long haul.

What they are teaching in Saudi Arabia is a major concern, however, it should not be looked as an opportunity to laugh at them, but an opportunity for all of us to examine about ourselves and find a solution to bring about a world wide change, we are all in this together. 

Let’s never forget the words of wisdom from the first pluralist of the world; Jesus Christ, who said, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” As a society we should not rejoice the badness of others, instead we need to ponder and find ways for all of us to move towards “treat others as you would want to be treated.” We are all guilty of our own.

Even here in the United States, the most advanced nation, our school books at one time were derogatory towards Hinduism that I know of and have written about it with concern. Our own military was teaching hatred of Muslims in a civil society.  In Pakistan and Bangladesh children were taught to hate Indians, in Palestine and Israel same thing goes; denigration of each other. I am sure some where in India, they teach hatred towards Pakistanis, as it spills out in the language of a few Indians. A few parents still teach (by their attitudes) their children prejudice against Mexicans, African Americans, Muslims, Mormons, Jews, Gay and Lesbians…. the hate business is everywhere. No one is free from it.

We may have ugly feelings towards others, do we need to dump this on our children? What if they turn around and tell us to go hell for teaching them hatred towards.......  are you guilty of using words, comments and examples that amounts to giving sewer to your children to drink? It is time to reflect. 

Is this what we want to teach our children?

We are our children’s number one enemies, with our teaching and observing our stinky examples, they learn to become difficult people and perhaps live in misery their whole lives. They cannot relate with the real world out there.

Nations are no exception to this – the leaders of most of the nations spend their damned time in scheming and destroying others, instead of building bridges and living and letting others live.

This is a serious issue, we need to come together to find solutions. Lets’ begin with ourselves – take a few minutes to assess your own feelings after you read the following piece and then seriously evaluate if those feelings add to the well being of the world or aggravate it further. The choice is always yours, about how you feel – hateful, resentful, avengeful, merciful, solutionsful or full of compassion and desire to change ourselves first before we think about changing others. If we are crappy, how can we expect others to be not?

Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies where no one is apprehensive of fearful of the other.  

Teaching Intolerance

You should see what even first graders have to read in Saudi Arabia.

BY EMAN AL NAFJAN | 

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — In the years just before the 9/11 attacks, I spent two semesters at a public school in Riyadh for my training as a teacher. I was stationed each day at the campus gates, instructed to inspect the girls' abayas as they left school. For each student older than 12, I checked: Was she wearing the tent-style cloak over her head and down to her ankles? Was her face fully covered, no slits for her eyes? I felt like a hypocrite, penalizing girls for violating a custom I don't support -- and one that the majority of Islamic scholars say is not a religious obligation.

The mandate was and still is part of the government-issued curriculum taught in Saudi public schools; it was in their textbooks that the girls were told they should cover their faces in order to be good Muslim women.

Much is made about the role of Islam in Arab societies -- how different interpretations of the Quran can shape laws and conventions. But less often do we consider how these interpretations reach our children: at school and, ultimately, in the textbooks they read. Since Saudi Arabia's first national textbooks were issued in 1937, the controversies they have inspired have mirrored the country's most fundamental debates -- about religion, the treatment of women, the influence of the West. Over time, textbooks have become instruments of the country's religious conservatives, replete with calls to jihad and denunciations of non-Muslims. Yet despite periodic reform efforts, and even though these efforts have escalated amid the global outrage that followed 9/11, in many ways the books remain stubbornly impervious to change. Even in the past two years, they have instructed first graders not to greet infidels and warned 10th graders of the West's threat to Islam.

The Saudi education system wasn't always destined for orthodoxy. King Abdulaziz, the kingdom's founder, established the precursor to today's Education Ministry in 1925, seven years before officially founding the country in 1932. The first national textbooks were heavily influenced by Egyptian and Lebanese curricula, and their chief author, the researcher Omar Abduljabbar, was considered a progressive, opening one of Saudi Arabia's first private girls' schools at a time when only boys could attend public schools.

By the 1950s, however, religious ultraconservatives had begun putting down roots in the Education Ministry. Despite the ministry's efforts to recruit members of the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt and Syria, who were seen as proponents of a more liberal form of Islam, the more powerful Saudi religious establishment ensured that textbooks and school policies would become more intolerant and conservative, which the government's 1968 educational policy document solidified formally. In the following decades, those brave enough to criticize the government-mandated curriculum were scarce if not nonexistent. Saudis who were unhappy with the public education system could send their children abroad; even private Saudi schools were (and still are) required to teach Arabic and the government's religious curriculum.

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Back to School

Things went on this way with few changes until 15 of the 19 hijackers responsible for the 9/11 attacks were revealed to have been Saudis. Suddenly, outsiders began asking questions and pointing fingers, wondering what exactly was being taught in our schools. A 2002 Boston Globe report, for instance, bearing the headline "Saudi Schools Fuel Anti-U.S. Anger," quoted inflammatory passages from a government textbook, such as, "The hour will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews, and Muslims will kill all the Jews." Saudis, too, began to reconsider: What kind of messages were we teaching our children?

The question was blown wide open in 2006 with the publication of a Freedom House report titled "Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance," which was translated into Arabic and published in the local newspaper Al-Watan. The report analyzed 12 Islamic-studies textbooks, concluding that "the Saudi public school religious curriculum continues to propagate an ideology of hate toward the 'unbeliever'" -- most egregiously in a 12th-grade text that instructed students to wage violent jihad against infidels to "spread the faith." Many Saudis bristled at a foreign organization meddling in their internal affairs, but the findings managed to rekindle the debate about Saudi education. The pages of Saudi schoolbooks were finally submitted to a new, unfamiliar scrutiny -- not just from outsiders but also from Saudis themselves.

The Education Ministry responded to the criticism, appearing to commit itself to reform by relegating 2,000 teachers it deemed extremists to administrative roles far from the classroom. The ministry also instructed principals to report anyone preaching extremism.

Yet textbooks remained largely untouched, with only the most explicitly intolerant material removed. Now and then a journalist today picks up one of the government-issued schoolbooks only to find that extremism has sneaked back into Saudi schools.

In the 2010-2011 academic year, the new first-grade jurisprudence book (yes, "Islamic jurisprudence" is taught in the first grade, along with a subject called "monotheism") condemned saying hello to non-Muslims. The lesson was presented as a dialogue between a teacher and a student named Ahmed. Ahmed asks, "Should I say hello to people I don't know?" The teacher replies, "Yes, you say hello to Muslims you know and Muslims you don't know."

The news caused an uproar in the Saudi media that prompted the Education Ministry to recall the books and remove the offensive portion. But the new copies suspiciously omitted the names of the book's authors, replacing them with the phrase "Authored and revised by a team of experts." Among the book's creators had been Sheikh Yusuf al-Ahmad, known for suggesting that the Grand Mosque in Mecca be rebuilt to ensure complete gender segregation and for calling for a boycott against supermarkets that planned to employ female cashiers. (The sheikh is currently in prison for speaking out against the government's practice of imprisoning political dissidents indefinitely and without charge.)

Just last year, new interpretations were introduced in the boys' 10th-grade hadith, the book of the Prophet Mohammed's sayings and traditions. (Ever since a 1958 royal decree that allowed Saudi girls to attend public schools, boys and girls have been required to use different textbooks.)

The move seemed progressive on the surface: The new subjects included human rights, Westernization, globalization, and international scholarships -- but under these headings lay more propaganda. Westernization, for instance, was described (in a mouthful) as a policy "exerted by the dominant forces by tools such as the Security Council and the United Nations in order to implement Westernization strategies in poor countries, especially Islamic nations, under the slogans of reform, democracy, pluralism, liberalism, and human rights, particularly with regard to women and religious minorities." The book also warned that by obtaining an education in the West, Saudi students were at risk of adopting beliefs, values, and behaviors at odds with Islam.

The hadith additions were widely thought to be an underhanded way of criticizing Saudi King Abdullah's scholarship program, which since 2005 has funded 130,000 Saudi students to study in countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States. That such anti-Western language made it into the hadiths proves how embedded Saudi ultraconservatives are in the Education Ministry -- they were able to modify textbooks even against official national programs.

The Education Ministry ultimately held its ground, revising the textbooks to exclude the intolerant subject matter. Still, teaching extremism is only one facet of a much larger, more persistent problem. In a 2009 study on education reform in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh-based researcher Ahmed al-Eissa found that the lion's share of the average male Saudi student's class time -- about 30 percent -- is still in religion. It's no wonder then that Saudi Arabia ranks so poorly in other core academic subjects. In the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, published by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics, only Ghana and Qatar fared worse than Saudi Arabia in eighth-grade math scores across 48 countries. In science, Saudi students only performed better than those in Ghana, Qatar, Botswana, and El Salvador.

A study published last year by religious scholar Abdulaziz al-Qasim found that Saudi religion textbooks "have focused far too much on the lowest educational and skill objectives, such as rote memorization and classification, and neglected entirely the objectives of analysis, problem-solving, and critical thinking," leading to "passiveness and negativity." But Eissa's 2009 study noted that there is widespread refusal within the Education Ministry even to acknowledge the need for an overhaul.

It has been more than a decade since the Education Ministry began working on a plan to address these problems. Known as the Comprehensive Curricula Development Project, it is expected to be implemented across the kingdom in the next year, according to its website. Yet, if one reads the project's mission statement for religious textbooks, it is difficult to be optimistic. It calls for the books to require that "the learner grasp his membership and loyalty to Islam and derive all his affairs within it and renounce all that goes against it," as well as to "protect himself in facing deviant sects, creeds, false interpretations of sharia with reason, evidence, and politeness." Nowhere in the statement's 28 points is there any mention of tolerance or peace. 

Somehow "time management," No. 28, is a bigger priority.

Even if the ministry's changes materialize, education reform in Saudi Arabia is not simply a matter of revising textbooks. It's a matter of changing the minds of whole generations. Saudis who were taught to believe a very narrow interpretation of Islam are now foisting it onto millions more students. They will have to determine a way forward -- but they won't find the answer in their textbooks.

Saudi Beauty Queen

Here She Comes: Miss Beautiful MoralsBy DONNA ABU-NASR, AP

posted: 1 HOUR 49 MINUTES AGOcomments:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (May 6) - Sukaina al-Zayer is an unlikely beauty queen hopeful. She covers her face and body in black robes and an Islamic veil, so no one can tell what she looks like. She also admits she's a little on the plump side.

But at Saudi Arabia's only beauty pageant, the judges don't care about a perfect figure or face. What they're looking for in the quest for "Miss Beautiful Morals" is the contestant who shows the most devotion and respect for her parents.

Khadra al-Mubarak, shown, helped organize Saudi Arabia's "Miss Beautiful Morals" pageant, which focuses on the female contestants' commitment to Islamic morals. Good looks won't win this crown -- the queen will be the one who exhibits the most love and respect for her parents. And since men aren't permitted to watch the event, woman can remove their veils and abayas.

"The idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants' commitment to Islamic morals... It's an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman's body and looks," said pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak.

"The winner won't necessarily be pretty," she added. "We care about the beauty of the soul and the morals."

So after the pageant opens Saturday, the nearly 200 contestants will spend the next 10 weeks attending classes and being quizzed on themes including "Discovering your inner strength," "The making of leaders" and "Mom, paradise is at your feet" — a saying attributed to Islam's Prophet Muhammad to underline that respect for parents is among the faith's most important tenets.

Pageant hopefuls will also spend a day at a country house with their mothers, where they will be observed by female judges and graded on how they interact with their mothers, al-Mubarak said. Since the pageant is not televised and no men are involved, contestants can take off the veils and black figure-hiding abayas they always wear in public.

The Miss Beautiful Morals pageant is the latest example of conservative Muslims co-opting Western-style formats to spread their message in the face of the onslaught of foreign influences flooding the region through the Internet and satellite television.

A newly created Islamic music channel owned by an Egyptian businessman aired an "American Idol"-style contest for religious-themed singers this month. And several Muslim preachers have become talk-show celebrities by adopting an informal, almost Oprah-like television style, in contrast to the solemn clerics who traditionally appear in the media.
Now in its second year, the number of pageant contestants has nearly tripled from the 75 women who participated in 2008. The pageant is open to women between 15 and 25. The winner and two runners up will be announced in July, with the queen taking home $2,600 and other prizes. The runners up get $1,300 each.
Last year's winner, Zahra al-Shurafa, said the contest gives an incentive to young women and teens to show more consideration toward their parents.
"I tell this year's contestants that winning is not important," said al-Shurafa, a 21-year-old English major. "What is important is obeying your parents."
There are few beauty pageants in the largely conservative Arab world. The most dazzling is in Lebanon, the region's most liberal country, where contestants appear on TV in one-piece swimsuits and glamorous evening gowns and answer questions that test their confidence and general knowledge.


Our new toolbar integrates latest news into your Web browser and installs in seconds. Download It Now There are no such displays in ultra-strict Saudi Arabia, where until Miss Beautiful Morals was inaugurated last year, the only pageants were for goats, sheep, camels and other animals, aimed at encouraging livestock breeding.
This year's event kicks off Saturday in the mainly Shiite Muslim town of Safwa, and mostly draws local Shiite contestants. But it's open to anyone — and this year, 15 Sunni Muslims are participating, al-Mubarak said. "This is a beautiful thing," she added.

There have long been tensions between the two sects in the kingdom. Hard-liners in the Sunni majority consider Shiites infidels, and the Shiites often complain of discrimination and greater levels of poverty.

Al-Zayer, a 24-year-old international management student, said she signed up because she is the "spitting image" of her mother. "I'm proud of my devotion to my parents," she said.

What does she think of Lebanon's beauty contests?
"It's a matter of cultural differences," she said. "In Saudi Arabia, they are Islamically unacceptable."
Awsaf al-Mislim, another contestant, said if she does not win the crown, she will have won something more important.

"I will be proud to show everyone that I competed with the others over my devotion to my parents," the 24-year-old said.

Saudi Arabia - A change in the making

Saudi Arabia; a change in the making

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was perhaps the first head of a government, who was secure enough to initiate the Madinah pact, one of the first Pluralist documents in the history of mankind that respected and accepted God's intentional diversity to remain intact.I sincerely hope, that the Saudi King will pave the way to make the land of the prophet to once again become a beacon of pluralism, that Islam was and I pray that God help the King achieve it. Amen.

Continued: http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/WorldMuslimCongress/Articles/Saudi-Arabia-change-is-in-the-making.asp

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer on Pluralism, interfaith, peace, Islam and India. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television networks discussing these and the civic issues. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at GhouseMike@gmail.com

Pluralistic Societies, Saudi Arabia, World Muslim Congress, foundation for pluralism, Pluralist, Mike Ghouse Pluralist

Saudi Arabia - A change in making

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was perhaps the first head of a government, who was secure enough to initiate the Madinah pact, one of the first Pluralist documents in the history of mankind that respected and accepted God's intentional diversity to remain intact.

The society was pluralistic during his time, and a hundred years later pluralism vanished and was vanquished giving root to the mono-religious society. The nature of Islam and the writings after that time lost the universal message, the writigns were not reflective of the society that Prophet Muhammad envisioned.

I sincerely hope, that the Saudi King will pave the way to make the land of the prophet to once again become a beacon of pluralism, that Islam was and I pray that God help the King achieve it. Amen.

Continued:

Mike Ghouse
www.WorldMuslimCongress.com
www.FoundationforPluralism.com

Preaching Moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia

Preaching Moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia

The Muslim Tele-evangelists are appearing on the Cable TV in the Middle east and the audience is increasing incessantly. Bryan Denton of New York Times did the story on the subject and 100 plus comments from the readers are logged so far. I read the unfounded fear among the letters; what if those who are learning to be moderates, ultimately read the Qur'aan, which according to them teaches extremism and fall prey to it?

The fear is legitimate but founded on false foundation created by the European translators who were paid to mistranslate the Qur'aan in the 10th, 11th and 14th centuries to gain support from their subjects against the fabricated "Mohammadan Cult". They wanted to combat the invading kings from the Arab lands and resorted to creating fear among their subjects to protect their wealth; thus Islamophobia was born. Almost all of the Euro-American scholarship on Islam is founded on that falsity and they are chasing their own tails, they quote the same circular logic of those mistranslated Verses, as though that is God's words. In the 20th Century the Muslim kings who were losing most of their kingdoms resorted to the opposite technique, to mistranslate Quran to gain the support of the Muslim subjects. They all need to push the refresh button.

If you are afraid of Qur'aan, I guarantee you that have one of the 20 Million mistranslated copies of the Qur'aan by Hilali Khan, given to you for free. It is not only you, but I will be offended and puke reading that translation as well.

I have put that work in the http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2008/01/unlike-jews-or-christians-17.html and http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2008/01/quraan-and-neocons.html or just read the 15 of the 60 mistranslated verses.

One needs to welcome this trend. It is healthy and opens up people to question and understand. It is good for both Muslims and Non-Muslims who have based a whole war of religion on false foundation. http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/

The following statement is one of the most truthful and powerful statements of the article "You always felt you were doing something wrong, and it drove a lot of people away.” Such is the guarding done, it is not just Islam, you find that in all faiths. Even to this day, in the groups that I moderate, that kind of mind set prevails, but fortunately it is dwindling.

Islam is indeed about the middle path, a path recommended by the Prophet. Let these new generational kids explore, they will discover and will latch on to it. It brings a balance as Caliph Ali had said "balance between faith and the worldly living".

One another powerful sentence the writer has brought to the fore is "“There is no one with any real authority,". A catholic nun had expressed the same sentiment on Meet the press with Tim Russert a few years ago. The fundamentalists and the Neocons can lie in your face, "we will take care of you, we will protect you" to the frightened public and earn their blind support. Where as the moderates, the middle pathers cannot lie, they want the individuals to shoulder the responsibility and as such, they do not use authoritative language.

I am optimistic and hopeful with this change. I am similarly a product of that change resulting in the Yahoo discussion group "WorldMuslimCongress@yahoogroups.com and the sites www.WorldMuslimCongress.com to give voice to the expressions of moderate majority of Muslims, who are craving to feel that they are not wrong, that they are doing the right thing by following the middle path. The Islam they grew up with is as beautiful as any religion, and there is nothing wrong believing that all faiths are beautiful. As they say 'beauty is in the eyes of the beholder', I say 'faith is in the heart of the believer.'

I appreciated this article, it is an expression of 95% of Muslims around the world, who are moderates, and incidentally 95% of any people, any faith, and any group are moderates.

Mike Ghouse
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Preaching Moderate Islam and Becoming a TV Star http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/03/world/middleeast/03preacher.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Ahmad al-Shugairi, host of a TV show on religious themes, with students at his cafe in Jidda.


By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: January 2, 2009
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — As Ahmad al-Shugairi took the stage, dressed in a flowing white gown and headdress, he clutched a microphone and told his audience that he had no religious training or titles: “I am not a sheik.”

Related
Robert F. Worth on a new generation of television preachers in the Muslim world.

Generation Faithful
Crossing Cultures
This is the last in a series of 11 articles examining the lives of the young across the Muslim world at a time of religious revival.
Previous Articles in the Series »
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Bryan Denton for The New York Times
The Saudi preacher Ahmad al-Shugairi leading his staff in prayer during a break from work on his show “Khawater.” It runs daily during Ramadan.

But over the next two hours, he worked the crowd as masterfully as any preacher, drawing rounds of uproarious laughter and, as he recalled the Prophet Muhammad’s death, silent tears. He spoke against sectarianism. He made pleas for women to be treated as equals. He talked about his own life — his seven wild years in California, his divorce, his children — and gently satirized Arab mores.

When he finished, the packed concert hall erupted in a wild standing ovation. Members of his entourage soon bundled him through the thick crowd of admirers to a back door, where they rushed through the darkness to a waiting car.

“Elvis has left the building,” Mr. Shugairi joked, in English, as he relaxed into his seat.
Mr. Shugairi is a rising star in a new generation of “satellite sheiks” whose religion-themed television shows have helped fuel a religious revival across the Arab world. Over the past decade, the number of satellite channels devoted exclusively to religion has risen from 1 to more than 30, and religious programming on general interest stations, like the one that features Mr. Shugairi’s show, has soared. Mr. Shugairi and others like him have succeeded by appealing to a young audience that is hungry for religious identity but deeply alienated from both politics and the traditional religious establishment, especially in the fundamentalist forms now common in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

In part, that is a matter of style: a handsome, athletically built 35-year-old, Mr. Shugairi effortlessly mixes deep religious commitment with hip, playful humor. He earned an M.B.A. during his California years, and he sometimes refers to Islam as “an excellent product that needs better packaging.”

But his message of sincere religious moderation is tremendously powerful here. For young Arabs, he offers a way to reconcile a world painfully divided between East and West, pleasure and duty, the rigor of the mosque and the baffling freedoms of the Internet.

“He makes us attached to religion — sometimes with our modern life we get detached,” said Imma al-Khalidi, a 25-year-old Saudi who burst into tears when Mr. Shugairi, uneasy with his rock-star departure from the auditorium, returned to the hall to chat with a group of black-clad and veiled young women. There was an audible intake of breath as the women saw him emerge. A few bold ones walked forward, but most hung back, seemingly stunned.

“Before, we used to see only men behind a desk, like judges,” Ms. Khalidi said.
Mr. Shugairi is not the first of his kind. Amr Khaled, an Egyptian televangelist, began reaching large audiences eight years ago. But the field has expanded greatly, with each new figure creating Internet sites and Facebook groups where tens of thousands of fans trade epiphanies and links to YouTube clips of their favorite preachers.

Mr. Shugairi’s main TV program, “Khawater” (“Thoughts”), could not be more different from the dry lecturing style of so many Muslim clerics. In one episode on literacy, the camera follows Mr. Shugairi as he wanders through Jidda asking people where to find a public library (no one knows). In another, he pokes through a trash bin, pointing to mounds of rotting rice and hummus that could have been donated for the poor. He even sets up “Candid Camera”-style gags, confronting people who pocket a wallet from the pavement and asking them if the Prophet Muhammad would have done the same.

At times, his program resembles an American civics class disguised as religion, complete with lessons on environmental awareness and responsible driving.

Criticized From Both Sides

Inevitably, hard-line clerics dismiss Mr. Shugairi as a lightweight who toadies to the West. From the other side, some liberals lament that Mr. Shugairi and the other satellite sheiks are Islamizing the secular elite of the Arab world.

And while most of these broadcast preachers, including Mr. Shugairi, promote a moderate and inclusive strain of Islam, others do not. There are few controls in the world of satellite television, where virtually anyone can take to the air and preach as he likes on one of hundreds of channels.
Moreover, some observers fear that the growing prevalence of Islam on the airwaves and the Internet could make moderates like Mr. Shugairi steppingstones toward more extreme figures, who are never more than a mouse-click or a channel-surf away.

“There is no one with any real authority, they can say whatever they want to say, and the accessibility of these sheiks is 24/7,” said Hussein Amin, a professor at the American University in Cairo. “That’s why so many who were liberals are now conservatives, and those who were conservatives are now radicals.”

Mr. Shugairi and others like him, including the popular Egyptian television preacher Moez Masoud, counter that their moderate message is the best way to fight Islamic extremism. Forging that middle path, they say, is essential at a time when many young Arabs feel caught between an angry fundamentalism on the one hand and a rootless secularism on the other.

Enlarge This Image

Bryan Denton for The New York Times
At Mr. Shugairi’s Andalus cafe in Jidda. He says Islam is “an excellent product that needs better packaging.”

Bakr Azam is one of them. Like many of Mr. Shugairi’s fans, he received a dry, pitiless religious education that left him feeling resentful and hungry for something different.

“In high school, the way they taught us religion was very white and black,” said Mr. Azam, a 28-year-old Saudi who works as a recruiter for Toyota. “You always felt you were doing something wrong, and it drove a lot of people away.”

It drove Mr. Azam farther away than most. After moving to the United States for college in 1997, he more or less gave up on Islam entirely. He moved back here in 2001, a hip-hop fan with dyed red hair, a love for parties and no interest in religion.

But something was missing. In 2004, he happened to see one of Mr. Shugairi’s programs on TV, and he was mesmerized. Here was a man who had lived in the West and yet spoke of the Koran as a modern ethical guidebook, not a harsh set of medieval rules. He seemed to be saying you could enjoy yourself, retain your independence and at the same time be a good Muslim.
Right away, Mr. Azam opened his laptop and found Mr. Shugairi’s Web site. He joined a volunteer group in Jidda linked to the show. He found himself returning to the rituals he had grown up with, fasting and praying. He still counts himself a moderate, like his mentor. But — also like Mr. Shugairi — he became so devout that he separated from his wife, who did not wear a head scarf and retained the secular attitude he once shared.

“Ahmad made us look back at religion,” Mr. Azam said of Mr. Shugairi. “He helped us see that Islam is not about living in caves and being isolated from the world. Islam is international. It is modern. It is tolerant.”

As he spoke, Mr. Azam was sitting on a blue couch in the Andalus cafe, which was built by Mr. Shugairi as a gathering place for young people in Jidda. A few feet away, a televangelist could be seen talking about Islam on a large plasma TV screen. Nearby, young people sat gazing at their laptops, while Islamic music played quietly in the background. The design and furniture in the cafe are in the style of Andalusian Spain, widely seen as a high point in Islamic history, when scholarship and tolerance flourished.

Mr. Shugairi often spends time here chatting with friends and admirers, sipping tea and moving easily between Arabic and his California-accented English. He has become something of a celebrity in Saudi Arabia, but he seems uncomfortable with the role and does not have the arrogant manner of many educated Saudis. He makes a point of being friendly and respectful to everyone, including the Asian laborers who do most menial tasks here.

Mr. Shugairi got his start in television in 2002, when he began appearing on a program called “Yella Shabab” (“Hey, Young People”). Two years later, he started his own show, “Khawater,” which runs daily during the holy month of Ramadan.

Part of his inspiration, Mr. Shugairi said, came from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which hit him especially hard as someone who spent formative years in the United States. “Many of us felt a need to educate youth to a more moderate understanding of religion,” he said, during an interview at the cafe.

Yet his approach to Islam, as with most of the other satellite TV figures who have emerged in the past few years, is fundamentally orthodox. He says that women should wear the hijab, or head scarf, and he talks of the Koran as a kind of constitution that should guide Muslim countries. His next program, “If He Were Among Us,” scheduled to be broadcast early this year, is focused squarely on adhering to the Prophet Muhammad’s life as an example.

To California and Back

Mr. Shugairi’s own life — and especially his struggle with the poles of decadence and extreme faith — is an essential feature of his appeal to many fans.

Born here in 1973 to a wealthy, cosmopolitan family, Mr. Shugairi went to college at age 17 in Long Beach, Calif. By his own account, he completely stopped praying. He chased women at clubs, and he even — for a year — drank. In 1995 he got married, and the pendulum swung toward a severe Islamism, as he angrily renounced the freedoms of his student life.
“Nothing violent, but intellectual violence,” Mr. Shugairi said, during an interview at the Andalus cafe.

He moved back to Saudi Arabia to manage his father’s importing business. His wife did not share his turn toward extremism, and the marriage soon ended in divorce.

It was then that he began studying with a cleric, Adnan al-Zahrani, who exposed him to the idea that Islam’s greatest strength comes from its diversity and its openness to new ways of thinking. For the first time, Mr. Shugairi found a way to balance the warring forces in his life, his American self and his Saudi self.

For much of his young audience, this synthesis is the key to his appeal. These young Muslims have inherited a world painfully divided between what they hear from the clerics and what they see on satellite television and the Internet. This is especially true in Saudi Arabia, with its powerful and deeply conservative religious establishment.

“Ahmad helped me see that I can want to be with a girl, and it’s O.K. — I don’t need to feel bad,” said Muhammad Malaikah, a lean 22-year-old with a shy smile.

Now, he said, he was able to spend time alone with his girlfriend and still feel he was being true to himself and his culture. He goes to the movies with her. Sometimes they kiss, “but no sex.” He has persuaded her to start wearing the hijab.

“Ahmad showed us a middle way in everything,” he said, “in relationships, in working, in fasting, in prayer.”

Saudis' dubious interfaith agenda

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/11/saudis-dubious-interfaith-agenda.html

The Saudis' dubious interfaith agenda at the UN
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The article follows my comments:

While the facts presented in the article below are correct, we have to keep this as a record and encourage the Saudi’s to continue to tread on the path of Pluralism they are embarking on. If we fail to stoke the good, even if it is pretended at this moment, we would be discouraging any such initiatives, and become the blockade for progress. Saudi’s have taken a few good initiatives and hopefully, it would shame them to look at themselves and cause a gradual change.

If the Saudi’s are pursuing their own agenda, they need to clean their house first, they need to reign in on their fringe elemental clerics who shot their reckless fatwa’s on the microphones declaring Shia’s as non-Muslims, they need to orient their religious police that if a Hindu was worshipping Ganesha in the privacy of his own room, he should be left alone, the religious police need harass women who do not wear Hijab. Let the women have the choice to wear or not wear. Qur’aan never said to force any one to do things against their will, let alone compel them.

We may need to think the validity and sustainability of enacting new laws, similar to the effect in the US and Europe along the lines of Criticism of Holocaust, which will land you in Jail. Should the Criminal Laws include provisions where one cannot spread hate, which will consume the society into violence, examples would include denigration of the names of the spiritual masters in other faiths, using religious Icons on foot wear etc. No more derogatory comments about Pagans, Animist and Wicca.

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer on Pluralism, interfaith, terrorism, peace, interfaith, Islam and Multiculturism and India. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at Ghousemike@gmail.com

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The Saudis' dubious interfaith agenda at the UN
The country's lack of religious freedom betrays its lofty rhetoric. The real aim of its 'dialogue' is to promote a global blasphemy law.
By Donald H. Argue and Leonard A. Leo from the November 13, 2008 edition


Washington - World leaders gathering at the United Nations this week for a special session of the General Assembly to advance interfaith dialogue should have no illusions that their efforts will miraculously promote mutual respect between religious communities or end abuses of religious freedom.

Saudi King Abdullah, who initiated this week's special session, is quietly enlisting the leaders' support for a global law to punish blasphemy – a campaign championed by the 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference that puts the rights of religions ahead of individual liberties.

If the campaign succeeds, states that presume to speak in the name of religion will be able to crush religious freedom not only in their own country, but abroad.
The UN session is designed to endorse a meeting of religious leaders in Spain last summer that was the brainchild of King Abdullah and organized by the Muslim World League. That meeting resulted in a final statement counseling promotion of "respect for religions, their places of worship, and their symbols ... therefore preventing the derision of what people consider sacred."

The lofty-sounding principle is, in fact, a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion. Instead of promoting harmony, however, this effort will exacerbate divisions and intensify religious repression.

Such prohibitions have already been used in some countries to restrict discussion of individuals' freedom vis-à-vis the state, to prevent criticism of political figures or parties, to curb dissent from prevailing views and beliefs, and even to incite and to justify violence.
They undermine the standards codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the keystone of the United Nations, by granting greater rights to religions than to individuals, including those who choose to hold no faith – or who would seek to convert.

Another stark irony hangs over the UN special session this week. Saudi Arabia is one of the world's worst abusers of religious freedom, a fact recognized by the Bush administration when it named it a "country of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act in 2004. The king couldn't hold such a conference at home, where conservative clerics no doubt would purge the guest list of Jews from Israel, Baha'is, and Ahmadis.

The Saudi government permits the public practice of only one interpretation of Islam. This forces the 2-to-3 million Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and other expatriate workers there to leave their convictions at the border, since non-Muslim places of worship are prohibited, non-Muslim religious materials risk confiscation, and even private worship is affected by the strictures.

It also violates the rights of the large communities of Muslims who adhere to Islamic traditions other than the one deemed orthodox by Saudi clerics. In the past two years, dozens of Shiites have been detained for up to 30 days for holding small religious gatherings at home. One Ismaili, Hadi Al-Mutaif, is serving a life sentence after being condemned for apostasy in 1994 for a remark he made as a teenager that was deemed blasphemous. The alleged crime of apostasy, in fact, can be punished by death.

The government's policies are enforced by the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, a roving religious police force, armed with whips, that regularly oversteps its authority and is unchecked by the judiciary.

Women seeking to exercise basic freedoms of speech, movement, association, and equality before the law have experienced particularly severe abuse.

In a particularly egregious recent case, a woman was gang-raped as punishment by seven men who found her alone in a car with a man who was not her relative. She escaped the sentence of 200 lashes and six months in prison only because of a pardon by King Abdullah, yet he also said he believed the sentence was appropriate.

Holding a session on advancing interfaith dialogue abroad is a pale substitute for hosting it in the kingdom, where the message of respect for freedom of religion and belief is most needed.

Against the background of Saudi repression and the kingdom's role in exporting extremism, including through school textbooks preaching hatred of "unbelievers," the UN and every world leader attending the special session should be demanding an end to severe violations of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia.

Dialogue is no substitute for compliance with universal human rights standards.
The monarch would make a far greater contribution by exponentially increasing his efforts to promote religious freedom at home, where religious intolerance reigns. A welcome first step would be to release Hadi Al-Mutaif and all other religious prisoners who remain behind bars in Saudi Arabia.

• Donald H. Argue and Leonard A. Leo are members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.


Find this article at:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1113/p09s02-coop.html

Interfaith forum in Saudi Arabia

Bismillah, it is a good beginning.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most religiously conservative societies, and is opening up to people of other faiths. The process began in 2005 when Saudi Emissaries started branching out all over the world to explore interfaith. In Dallas per the request of a Saudi minister, I had arranged for a 20 member meeting from Jewish, Islamic and Christian groups as an initial step towards including all faiths in the near future. Since then the Saudi Kingdom has taken series of steps in this direction culminating in interfaith dialogue series. First it was the same three groups; Judaism, Christianity and Islam and now, I am pleased it has included Hinduism and Buddhism.

I am further pleased to read the following statements “Abdullah Al-Turki, secretary-general of the MWL, said, “The aim of the conference is for us to get to know each other and look for ways to cooperate.” And their focus is on “humanitarian issues and challenges facing the world”. He further adds “that the conference would look at social and ethnic conflicts, environmental issues, the breakdown of the family and militant violence around the world.” He added the conferences would initially not focus on theological issues.

Years ago, I had a daily radio show called “Wisdom of Religion, all the beautiful religions” which ran for full two years. Our focus was on the message of each one of the religions and how the common man on the street could relate with the essence of each faith.

God willing, the World Muslim Congress, the Memnosyne Foundation and the Foundation for pluralism from Dallas will work towards creating a better world of co-existence.

Jazak Allah Khair

Mike Ghouse
http://www.worldmuslimcongress.com/
http://www.memnosynefoundation.com/
http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/


Interfaith forum begins today
Badea Abu Al-Naja Arab News
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=111881&d=16&m=7&y=2008

MADRID: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will open here today an international interfaith conference that aims to allow representatives of the world’s great religions to get to know each other.

The Muslim World League (MWL) has organized the World Conference on Dialogue on the directives of King Abdullah. The king “has been calling for this type of dialogue between religions for the past three years,” Saleh Al-Namlah, undersecretary at the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information, told reporters.

Around 200 people are expected to attend the event. They include representatives of the world’s major religions: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress Michael Schneider and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is in charge of dialogue between the Vatican and Muslims, are prominent among them.

The interfaith idea, which comes after the Saudi king held talks with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in November last year, has sparked interest from Jewish and Christian groups around the world.

Abdullah Al-Turki, secretary-general of the MWL, said, “The aim of the conference is for us to get to know each other and look for ways to cooperate.”

He added that Saudi Arabia “affirms to the whole world its openness and cooperation with the world community.”

The MWL chief said the conference would avoid theological issues and instead focus on “humanitarian issues” and challenges facing the world. “Islam requires Muslims to inform people about Islam as the final divine message that came after the previous prophets, and that they must also challenge the link between Islam and extremist violence,” he said.

He added that the conference would look at social and ethnic conflicts, environmental issues, the breakdown of the family and militant violence around the world.

Al-Turki said many international organizations concerned with dialogue, human rights and global cooperation have welcomed the interfaith conference.

He hoped the conference would change the minds of the protagonists of a clash of civilizations. “Some researchers in the West still deal with Islamic civilization thinking that it would definitely clash with the Western civilization,” he pointed out.

The MWL secretary-general said the dialogue would help remove misunderstandings about Islam. “The conference will help save humanity from wars, injustice and corruption,” he added.
He reiterated Islam’s rejection of terrorism. “Terrorism is an international phenomenon and cannot be linked to a particular religion, country, people or culture.”

Al-Turki spoke about MWL’s long-standing tradition of holding dialogues with leaders of other faiths in the past 50 years. He urged the media to work for promoting a culture of dialogue among followers of different religions and cultures.

After the inaugural session attended by King Abdullah and King Juan Carlos of Spain, four sessions will be held before a final communiqué is read out on Friday.

Spain was chosen as the site for the conference as it is “a natural place for this type of dialogue” since for centuries it has been home to members of three of the world’s great religions, said Saudi Ambassador Prince Saud ibn Naif.

Furthermore, the UN Alliance of Civilizations, aimed at promoting dialogue between different cultures, was the idea of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

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Saudi king calls for 'new page' in inter-faith dialogue
Argentina Star
Wednesday 16th July, 2008
(IANS)

http://story.argentinastar.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/88176adfdf246af5/id/383114/cs/1/#reply

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah called for a 'new page for humanity' in inter-religious understanding Wednesday, saying it could help the world recover lost values and emerge from confusion.

Islam was a religion of moderation and tolerance, the monarch said in inaugurating the World Conference on Dialogue, a major inter-faith event sponsored by Saudi Arabia in the Spanish capital.

Earlier initiatives had failed because they sought to merge religions, an attempt doomed to failure, because all religions were convinced of their own beliefs despite God being the same for all, King Abdullah said.

Human tragedies were not caused by religions, but by extremism, the monarch explained.

Spain's King Juan Carlos said inter-faith dialogue could help solve problems including terrorism, hunger, disease and poverty.

Muslim World League Secretary-General Abdullah al-Turki called on delegates attending the three-day conference in Madrid to produce concrete projects with follow-up plans.

Around 200 Muslim, Christian and Jewish clergy and other experts on inter-religious dialogue were expected at the meeting instigated by Saudi Arabia in what was seen as a ground-breaking move for the conservative Muslim kingdom.

Experts and intellectuals, including Lebanese Culture Minister Tariq Mitri and Vatican inter-faith specialist Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, were to analyze issues such as the civilization foundations of inter-faith dialogue, ways to promote it, and common human values.

The conference, which also includes representatives of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism, is taking place against the backdrop of the Middle East conflict and controversy over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, but it was expected to shun political questions.

The sessions are closed to the media, with a final communique expected Friday.

Organised by the World Muslim League, the conference was partly inspired by King Abdullah's unprecedented meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican in November 2007, and by the International Islamic Conference for Dialogue in Mecca last June.

Detractors slammed the Madrid conference as a public relations operation by Saudi Arabia after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States, which were carried by mainly by Saudis inspired by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.

It was ironic for a meeting on religious tolerance to be sponsored by Saudi Arabia, where people other than Sunni Muslims had few rights, critics said. There were few Shia Muslim participants, and none of the Jewish participants were listed as Israelis, they added.

Others praised the initiative, with the World Jewish Congress describing it as a 'significant and timely development'.

The organisers were believed to have chosen Spain as the host country, because domestic opposition would have made it difficult to stage the conference in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Turki said Spain had been chosen because of the religious tolerance that characterized it when it was partly under Moorish rule for eight centuries until 1492.

Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in a relative harmony in Moorish Spain, known as al-Andalus. 'The image of al-Andalus made us hold this conference in Spain,' al-Turki told the daily El Mundo.

Makkah Interfaith dialogue

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/06/makkah-interfaith-dialogue.html

Muslims Gather for Interfaith Dialogue

Several articles will be listed below as they are published.

Praise the lord, Alhamdu Lillah, I am pleased to read this realization of King Abdullah “King Abdullah has realized that we Muslims have to play a part in reducing tensions across the world. It is a courageous decision.” For the last few years, we have been making attempts to define the role of Muslims in the world based in Qur'aan, and here is the sentence that makes part of the logo of this blogsite. "To be a Muslim is to be a peacemaker, one who constantly seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for the peaceful co-existence, God wants to live in peace and harmony with his creation."

Indeed, the World Muslim Congress is driven by the Qur'aan, Surah 49:13: "O mankind! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware.

"OUR MISSION is to work for a World of co-existence through inclusiveness and participation. As a member of diverse family of faiths, our efforts will be directed toward justice and equity to attain sustainable peace for the humankind with a firm grounding in truth. We believe what is good for Muslims has got to be good for the World and vice-versa to sustain the good. We have to remember the World is a two way street.We have a monumental task to repair the World, and we will do our part in working towards a World of co-existence, one community at a time. We are committed, and now help us God. Amen

http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/WorldMuslimCongress/Articles/Mission-Statement.asp

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker, Writer and a Moderator. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing Pluralism, politics, Islam, Religion, Terrorism, India and civic issues. He is the founder of the World Muslim Congress, a group committed to building bridges and nurturing a world of co-existence. He also heads the foundation for pluralism, an organization committed to studying religious pluralism and pluralistic governance. His personal website is http://www.mikeghouse.net/ and his writings are on the above websites as well as several of the ancillary Blogs listed on the sites.
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Reference: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/saudi-kings-for-interfaith-dialogue.html

Muslims Gather for Interfaith Dialogue
Badea Abu Al-Naja & Siraj Wahab, Arab News

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah performs Maghreb prayer with others at the Grand Mosque in Makkah on Tuesday. (SPA)

MAKKAH, 4 June 2008 — Muslim religious scholars, media personalities, academics and intellectuals from around the globe have arrived in the Holy City of Makkah for a three-day interfaith dialogue that begins today at the request of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. The king is to open the first session this morning with a speech that will outline the parameters of discussion Muslims should be having with people of other faiths.

The Makkah Hilton lobby buzzed last night as nearly 500 delegates from 50 different countries shared their points of view. The conference follows King Abdullah’s plea in March for dialogue among Muslims, Christians and Jews.

“We are excited and looking forward to participate in this historic meeting,” said Abdul Aziz Khalidi of the UK-based Islam Channel. “King Abdullah has realized that we Muslims have to play a part in reducing tensions across the world. It is a courageous decision.”

“Whether we accept it or not, this is a global village, and we have to play a constructive part in this world,” said Syrian delegate Sheikh Abdul Qader. “This conference will show us the direction. There will be a healthy debate among our scholars to discuss the format of our dialogue with people of other faiths.”

Noted author and writer M.J. Akbar said dialogue with other faiths should be conducted not because other people want it but because it is the right thing to do.

“Whether the other side is ready or not, we should take this step and make the other side run out of excuses,” he said. “Islam has a glorious history of protecting people of the other faiths.”

Abdullah Al-Turki, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, said the conference would discuss the basis for dialogue with other faiths in the context of the teachings of the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah.

Shoura Council President Saleh Bin-Humaid is scheduled to preside over the first session, which features a number of papers on the objectives of dialogue as outlined in the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah, and historical experiences of cultural dialogue.

Sheikh Muhammad Ali Taskhery, secretary-general of the Center for Reconciliation of Islamic Schools of Thought, will chair the second session and Jordan’s Chief Justice Ahmed Muhammad Haleel will present a paper on the mechanisms of dialogue.

Bosnian Mufti Mustafa Ceric will preside over the third session, which focuses on the importance of coordination among Islamic organizations in holding dialogue with other faiths. Abdullah Omar Naseef, secretary-general of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief, will present a paper and Muhammad Al-Sammak, secretary-general of the Islamic Spiritual Summit in Lebanon, will speak on dialogue with followers of divine religions.

The fourth session will be led by Abdul Rahman Sewar Al-Dahab, chairman of the board of trustees of the Islamic Dawa Organization. Mahmoud Ghazi of the College of Islamic Studies in Qatar will present a paper on the clash of civilizations and world peace. Ali Uzak of Turkey will speak on the common ground of family and morality.

The call for dialogue was welcomed by leaders of the three faiths and comes at a time of stalled peace initiatives and escalating tensions in the region.

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Mecca talks stress religious tolerance
· King Abdullah calls for better interfaith relations

· Saudi highlights dangers of Islamist extremism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/05/religion.islam

More than 500 delegates from around the world gathered in the Islamic holy city of Mecca yesterday with the aim of fostering better relations between Muslims and followers of other faiths. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia opened the three-day conference in Al-Safah Palace, a stone's throw from the Grand Mosque, by stressing the need for better understanding and cooperation between monotheistic religions.

The king urged his audience to promote the true message of Islam and said the Islamic world faced great difficulties in the form of extremists whose "aggressions and excessiveness" targeted the tolerance of the religion.

The event, the biannual meeting of the Muslim World League, a non-governmental organisation engaged in the propagation of Islam, has been described as an interfaith conference, although its location makes it strictly off-limits to non-Muslims. It is understood that Abdullah seeks greater unity among different Islamic schools of thought, so that summits with other religions can take place more easily. The king held talks in November with Pope Benedict XVI and in March announced plans to host a meeting between the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam - an initiative welcomed by the president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder.

The move is a departure from Saudi government practice, which does not allow the public practice of other religions in the kingdom.

Abdullah's understanding of interfaith dialogue differs from the one held by the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al al-Sheikh, who said dialogue with other religions was a way to bring non-Muslims into Islam. The cleric, who is the highest official of religious law, told the delegates that converting people to Islam was the ultimate goal of dialogue, a point made several times. "It is the opportunity to disseminate the principles of Islam. Islam advocates dialogue among people, especially calling them to the path of Allah."

The brochure advertising the event cites verses from the Qur'an that tell Muslims to "invite all to the way of the lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching and argue with them in the ways that are best and most gracious".

The conference organisers have insisted that speakers will focus on religion, not politics. However the former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who shared the stage with the Saudi monarch, only touched on the need for greater respect between Sunni and Shia Muslims, preferring instead to accuse western governments of hegemony in conflict zones.

Rafsanjani, a last-minute addition to the programme, said: "Without Islam the world is nothing. We control 20% of the world's resources. We don't want to waste these and it is our duty not to hand over what we have. Muslims are authorised to defend themselves in a good manner."

He told the audience to "think about Iraq", describing the presence of US troops as a threat to all neighbouring regions. "Iraqis have a responsibility not to let the Americans impose their diplomatic mission on Islam. Iraq has a great heritage and America wants to exploit it. We should not allow this exploitation and subjugation to continue. It is unofficial colonisation."

While Rafsanjani's remarks may not surprise people familiar with his anti-western tirades, his address will have darkened the mood of an event designed to encourage scholars to promote dialogue with different religions. His attendance, at the invitation of the king, will also sit uneasily with the Saudi clerics who denounced Iranian Shia last Sunday.

The conference, which ends tomorrow, will also hear from Dr Ali Bardakoglu, president of Turkey's Diyanet, the highest Islamic authority in the country, and the grand imam of Egypt's Al-Azhar mosque, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi.