Nobody's people in a no-man's land

In November 2007, Rohingya refugee Ali Ashraf paid dubious agents in
Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar town for a place in a big boat that was to
take him to Malaysia via Thailand for a "good job" and a "secure
future".
Three weeks later, after a perilous journey across the choppy waters
of the Bay of Bengal, Ashraf's boat was intercepted by the Thai navy.
The tough Rohingya was dragged outto a beach at night, beaten up and
questioned by uniformed men and then dumped back into the boat two
days later with other Rohingya.
The Thais had removed the boat'sengine before it was towed to the high
sea by a big naval ship and then left to drift. "There was no food or
water left in the ship, we were left to die on the sea," Ashraf said
two weeks later after he was rescued by Indian coast guards when his
boat drifted towards India's Andaman islands.
By then, Ashraf was on the verge of death, totally dehydrated and
emaciated. But after a month in an Indian hospital at Andaman's Port
Blair town, he had recoveredand was lucky to survive, unlike most of
his friends on that perilous boat journey.
"Some jumped off the boat in desperation when they saw the coastline.
Either they were drowned or eaten up by sharks. Others drank sea water
to quench thirst and died of disease.I survived by keeping my lips
moist with sea water but did not drink it. Allaah was merciful,"
Ashraf recounted his ordeal at Port Blair.
In the summer of 2008, he was taken back by Bangladesh after India
submitted a list of Rohingyarescued off the Andamans, and Dhaka agreed
to take only those of them who had Bangladeshi citizenship or a UNHCR
refugee certificate. Thankfully, Ashraf's details matched the records
at one of the Rohingya refugee camp run by the UNHCR near Cox's Bazar.
A month later, Ashrafwas reunited with his wife and children.
But efforts to trace down Ashraf during a visit to Bangladesh last
year were unsuccessful. People inCox's Bazar said Ashraf and his whole
family were among the thousands of Rohingya who had been repatriated
to Myanmar by the Bangladesh government, after the UNHCR cut down on
support to run the refugee camps that were first set up when tens of
thousands of Rohingya fled into Bangladesh in the late 1970s. More and
more camps were added to shelter the continuous flood of Rohingya
refugees fleeing Myanmar (then Burma), but they are now being steadily
closed down.
Bangladesh's Awami League-led coalition government wants to send back
all the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. "They are Myanmar citizens and
we have sheltered them long enough. Now they must go back and settle
down in Myanmar," Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said recently,
after a round of talks with a Myanmar delegation.
Unwanted in Bangladesh
The Awami League is a secular party wedded to Bengali linguistic
nationalism, and their leaders see the Rohingya as religious bigots
who support their rivals in Bangladesh's Islamic party, the
Jamait-e-Islami.Bangladesh intelligence officials say "the
Jamait-e-Islami support the Rohingya insurgent groups that have fought
Myanmar forces and routed funds from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to them
through a network of Islamic NGOs". The Rohingya groups denythe charge
but admit they have sympathizers across the Islamic world.
Unwanted now in an over-populated Bangladesh, the Rohingya are also
not wanted in their own country, Myanmar. Even President Thein Sein
has saidon record that the Rohingyas are migrants from the Chittagong
region of neighboring Bangladesh and not indigenous to Myanmar, so
they should be taken away to some other place.
In late July, dozens of Burmese in Yangon chanted slogans in front of
a UN office in Yangon: "Go backRohingya, get out of Myanmar, we
support our president".
It is entirely possible that the likes of Ashraf, after spending two
decades in refugee camps in Bangladesh, would have been displaced
again back home after returning.
The Buddhist Rakhines and the Muslim Rohingya have a long tradition of
intense hostility that goes back to the steady flow of Muslim
immigrants from Bengal'sChittagong region into Arakan province,
migration that was encouraged by the British. Thousands of Rakhines
and Rohingya died in riots in Arakan in 1942 during the Second World
War. The Japanese also massacred large number of Rohingya because they
supportedthe British.
In 1947, some Rohingya leaders formed the Mujahid Party and raised the
demand for a separate Muslim Autonomous Region in northern Arakan.
That upset the Rakhines and the Burmese military junta alike, and
General Ne Win unleashed "Operation King Dragon" in the
Rohingya-dominated areas of Arakan in 1978. The mass torture and
extra-judicial killings, gang rapes and demolition of mosques forced
nearly one-third of the Rohingya population to flee to Bangladesh.From
there, many of them movedinto India enroute to Pakistan and elsewhere
in the Middle east.
Indian alert
Now, India has also send out an alert to the states in the country's
northeast to step up vigil against "illegal" Rohingya migration, after
more than 1,400 Rohingyas have been nabbed in the last two years on
the borderstrying to get into Indian territory.
Chris Lewa, who has researched the Rohingya extensively, says
thousands of them have been migrating to Pakistan through India from
the refugee camps in Bangladesh. During the course of her research,
she found a lot of Rohingya women in the red light districts of
Karachi and many Rohingya men in the port city's thriving fishing
industry.
After the prospects of migrating to Pakistan and the Middle East began
to dry up, Rohingya turnedtowards Malaysia, travelling therethrough
Thailand. Many could slipin and settle down in Malaysia. Some even
reached Australia. But as the Thais became more vigilant and tried to
deter the Rohingya with harsh punishmentlike dragging their boats back
to high seas without engines, the hapless minority, now numbering
between 800,000 to a million in Myanmar, has been rendered short of
options to find a safe future.
PHOTO CAPTION
An ethnic Myanmar Rohingya Muslim living in Malaysia cries during a
protest over the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, outside
the Myanmarembassy in Kuala Lumpur on August 3, 2012.

The harsh reality of China's Muslim divide

The Muslim Hui are an anomaly inChina, an ethnic minority
grantedsignificant autonomy and allowed to devoutly follow their
religion in a region where Islam thrives.
The ancient Silk Road trade route cut through what is today the
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, luring Muslim traders from afar.
Descendants of Arab and Persian merchants travelled here in the 7th
century and many settled, planting the roots of Islam in the heart of
China.
About half the country's 20 million Muslims are from the Hui ethnic group.
Muslims were persecuted in Ningxia during Mao Zedong's Cultural
Revolution in the 1960s and '70s, but today Islam flourishes. More
than 400 mosques dot the region, and Islamic schools have produced
some 7,000 imams - or Islamic clerics known locally as ahongs.
While Muslim Uighurs of Turkic descent in the far west face
harshreligious restrictions and repression, the Hui have been afforded
much more political andreligious freedom by Beijing. Observers say it
is their friendly historical relations with the ethnic majority Han
that is the difference.
"The different cultures have merged in this place harmoniously," says
Ma Zhang Wen, the imam of Xinhua Mosque.
Ma, 38, has been an imam for the last 15 years in Yinchuan, Ningxia's
capital, about 1,300 kilometers northwest of Beijing.
"The government gives people a religion-training program to develop
Islam. The Han respect us, and we respect them, too," Ma says.
Economic revival
According to official data, there are 6.3 million people in Ningxia,
and 2.2 million are Hui.
The impoverished region faced hard times but has seen a revival in
recent years. Islam has helped rejuvenate the economy, and Ningxia has
developed economic ties to Arab and Muslim countries.
Ningxia's halal food industry, for example, is worth about $700m
ayear, according to government statistics.
The region's gross domestic product reached 206 billion yuan (US$33bn)
in 2011, an annual increase of 12 per cent.
"Peoples' lives in Ningxia are getting better and better. We don't
feel discrimination or inequality," says the imam Ma.
The government's move to nurture the region's economic growth has
helped. "The westerndevelopment policy encourages us to develop the
economy, and we have witnessed a dramatic change," he says.
Bao Hongbiao, a researcher at theNingxia Academy of Social Sciences,
says gearing products toward Islamic markets has paid off for
Ningxia's Muslim community.
"Muslim food and religious goodsare showing fast growth, providing
products to other provinces and exporting them to Central Asia and
other Muslim regions," says Bao.
Muslim Uighur repression
While Hui Muslims enjoy freedom to practice their religion, Muslim
Uighurs face strict government repression in far-western
Xinjiangprovince. Bao says while the Hui have happily assimilated with
themajority Han, the Uighurs have not.
Part of the problem is language differences. While the Hui and Han
both speak Mandarin, the Uighurs speak their own Turkic dialect and
write in Arabic script.
Others say the Uighurs' strong desire for autonomy explains the
difference in treatment.
But others highlight the government's policy of offering incentives
for Han Chinese to migrate west as a main cause of friction.
Alim Seytoff, president of the Uyghur American Association, says the
government routinely blocks Uighurs from practicing Islam.The Han
population in Xinjiang has skyrocketed from 6.7per cent in 1949 to 40
per cent in 2008, fueling ethnic tensions overresources and jobs.
"It is meant as a message to the Uighur people telling them to abandon
their faith or face charges of extremism, even for simple expressions
of religious belief. All these measures do is further alienate
Uighurs, if that is possible," says Seytoff.
Violence erupts
In July 2009 riots erupted in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi,
leaving about 200 Uighurs and Han dead. China's government cracked
down - a situation that continues to simmer to this day.
While Beijing supports the Muslim religion in Ningxia, that isfar from
the case in Xinjiang. Minors under the age of 18 are forbidden from
participating in Islamic practices, and thousands are detained every
year for"illegal religious activity", according to a report by Human
Right Watch.
It is strictly prohibited to celebrate religious holidays and study
religious texts at state institutions, including schools, said the
2005 report titled "Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs
in Xinjiang".
"For Beijing, Xinjiang falls into thesame broad category of political
concerns as Taiwan and Tibet," the report says. "Demands for
separation and/or autonomy are seen in Beijing as a threat to the
continued viability of the Chinese state."
During Ramadan, the Islamic blessed month, notices were posted banning
or discouraging fasting by Communist Party members, civil servants,
studentsand teachers.
"Religious extremism is closely related to violence and terrorism,and
cracking down on these is one of our top priorities," spokeswoman Hou
Hanmin was quoted as saying in the state-run Global Times newspaper. A
regional government spokeswoman denied that fasting was banned, saying
the notices only encouraged people to "eat properly for study and
work".
Amnesty International researcherCorinna-Barbara Francis says the
situation continues to deteriorate "very badly" in Xinjiang.
"There is a much tighter level of control for all Uighurs, and the
religious repression has intensified," she says.
PHOTO CAPTION
A file photo of Muslim Uighur men emerging from the Id Kah mosque
after prayers, in Kashgar,in China's western Xinjiang province Friday.

Muslims in India

Overall, the Muslims of India make up 13.4 percent of the country's
population of over one billion. Islam is India 's largest minority
religion.
India 's Muslim communities tend to be more urban than rural. Inmany
towns and cities in northern India , Muslims are one-third or more of
the population. The largest concentrations of Muslims live in the
states of Bihar, West Bengal , and Uttar Pradesh. According to the
country's 2001 census there is 138.188.240 Muslims in India .
India 's Muslims have played a historic role in shaping Indian
society, particularly in the medieval period in the areas of
architecture, calligraphy, miniature paintings, handicrafts, handloom,
poetry, literature in mystic humanism, culinary arts and sartorial
fashions.
Not only does the Taj Mahal, the most famous symbol of India,
commemorate the love for a Muslim queen, but the very name India is an
Anglicized version of the Arabic name Hind which Muslim scholars
started using for the area beyond Sindh (roughly the east of Pakistan
today).
In India the biggest Indian minority is a victim of deprivation.
Whether it is legislative assemblies educational institutions,
government jobs, the problem of security in case of riots,
representation in political organizations, posts in policy planning
and decision-making groups or other pressure groups there is acute
shortage of Muslim representation everywhere, resulting in constant
social tension and problems in governance.
Some challenges the Indian Muslims face:
1. Communal riots againstMuslims are among the biggest tragedies of
this independent, secular democracy. Wherever Muslims have acquired a
relatively better economic position, these riots send them back to the
starting point. There have been 249 riots per year according to Indian
government statistics. Senior Indian journalist, Khuswant Singh notes
that in all communal violence that has taken place in India since
Independence in the 1940s, over 75 per cent ofthe causalities - in
terms of lives and property destroyed - were Muslim.
2. The second important problem is the state of present textbooks in
the Indian education system which have become very aggressive in
teaching Hinduism. This hits Muslims' faith, culture, civilization,
language and way of life. The educational syllabi have prescribed
course books in all states, which are replete with matters pertaining
to the faiths of the majority community, mythologicaland other stories
of Hindu gods and goddesses against the principles prescribed in the
Constitution. Obviously all these things are negations of Islamic
beliefs and teachings, especially about the Oneness of God Almighty.
Hence there is no doubt that these things are causing great concern to
the Muslims.
The rewriting of history is done in a way that continues to fuel the
non-secular, chauvinistic Hindu perspectives, causing the new
generation of Indians to shape their behavior towards minorities in a
very hostile way.
3. The economic problem:More than fifty percent Muslims are leading a
lifebelow the poverty line ascompared to thirty-five percent of Hindus
who live below the poverty line. Because of a generalenvironment of
hostility against Muslims, decent employment in the private sector is
becoming increasingly difficult for Muslims, while in the public
sectorthere is no encouragement for Muslims either. The future of
Muslim professionals and its working class, traders etchas been very
greatly affected.
Today very few Muslims are found in governmentjobs. A recent survey
shows that there are onlyeight Muslim police chiefsin India 's 591
districts. That is .01% as compared to 12% of the Muslim population in
India . The situation of other departments is also worsening day by
day.
4. Education: The active discrimination Muslims face in the private
and public sector of the job market, has forced them to pay less
attention to school education which, in India , is connected with the
job market. In the educational field therefore, Muslims are very
backwards.
5. Urdu language. Another major problem of Muslims of India is thatof
the Urdu language. The Urdu language was born as a result of the
interaction and cohesion of different languages, nations, cultures and
civilizations and is a mixture of some old languages like Sanskrit,
Arabic, Persian, Turkish etc. Urdu is almost a deadlanguage now as far
as the medium of instruction is concerned. It is not tolerated even in
the primary and secondary stages of education.
The Muslims of India are very vulnerable in a country which describes
itself as the world's"largest secular democracy". Muslims today remain
poorer, lesseducated and less empowered in India .

Buying foods that have been made in accordance with Jewish laws.

In Canada there are a lot of foods on which there is a symbol having
to do with the ways of makingfood in the Jewish religion, which I do
not fully understand. This symbol says that the food is kosher.
Once it is understood that the food has been made in accordance with
kosher laws, is it permissible for us to eat it? Because many foods,
even bread, include ingredients like monoglyceride and diglyceride,
and I do not know whether the source is vegetable or animal, so it is
difficult for me to buy food.
Praise be to Allaah.
Allah has forbidden to the Jews many kinds of good foods, as a
punishment for their disobedience. Allah, mayHe be exalted, says
(interpretation of the meaning):
"For the wrongdoing of the Jews, We made unlawful for them certain
good foods which had been lawful for them"
[an-Nisa' 4:160].
As for our sharee'ah, it isan easy-going, tolerant law, as Allah has
permitted to us all good foods (at-tayyibaat) and He has not forbidden
to us anything but that which is bad (al-khabaa'ith). Allah, may He be
exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning):
"This day all good thingshave been made lawful to you"
[al-Maa'idah 5:5]
And Allah says, describing the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah
be upon him):
"he allows them as lawful At-Taiyibat ((i.e. all good and lawful) as
regards things, deeds, beliefs, persons, foods, etc.), and prohibits
themas unlawful Al-Khabaith (i.e. all evil and unlawful as regards
things, deeds,beliefs, persons, foods, etc.)"
[al-A'raaf 7:157].
After examining the food laws followed in the Jewish religion today,
it seems that all the foods that they regard as permissible are
permissible for us in our laws, and there is noexception to that, as
far as we know, except alcohol only.
The word kosher, which is used by the Jews, means that this food is in
accordance with the dietary laws followed in their religion.
Based on that, there is nothing wrong with a Muslim eating this food
unless he knows that they have put alcohol in it.
We will quote here a reliable text from a studyof the Jewish religion
in a book called Mawsoo'ah al-Yahood wa'l-Yahoodiyyah
wa'l-Suhyooniyyah (5/315-318) by Dr. 'Abd al-Wahhaab al-Maseeri, who
spent a decade of his life compiling and researching it. In this text
he gives a detailed explanation on the issue of food and dietary laws
in Judaism.
In this book he says:
The laws having to do with food are called in Hebrew kashrut, which is
derived from the wordkosher; what it means is appropriate or
befitting.
This word is used to refer to the set of laws that have to do with
food, preparation methods and the lawful manner of slaughter in
Judaism.
These are laws the origin of which is the Torah, and food that follows
the laws of kashrut is called kosher. What this word means is food
that it is permissible to eat according to the Jewish religion.
These laws forbid the Jew to eat specific types of food and permit him
to eat other kinds. In fact the prohibitions basically have to do
withmeat, but there are some other prohibitions,such as the fruit of a
treebefore four years have passed since its planting,or any plant that
was planted with another type of plant, as mixing plants, like mixed
marriages, is prohibited.This prohibition applies only to "the land of
Israel" i.e., Palestine.
It is also prohibited to drink any wine that has been made or touched
by a Gentile (i.e., a non-Jew).
In fact it is also prohibited to eat bread or any other food prepared
by a Gentile even if it was prepared in accordance with the Jewish
food laws.
There is also a prohibition on eating leavened bread during the feast
of Passover.
With regard to meat, therulings are as follows:
(a)
It is permissible for the Jew to eat clean animals and birds.
These are animals that have four legs and cloven hooves, have no
eyeteeth or fangs, eat plants and chew the cud.The birds (that Jews
are permitted to eat) are domestic fowl that can be raised in houses
and gardens, and some wild birds that eat plants and grains.
All animals and birds apart from these are regarded as unclean. Hence
it is forbidden to eat horses, mules and donkeys because they do not
have cloven hooves; it is also forbidden to eat camels because they do
not have cloven hooves. Pigsare forbidden because they have eyeteeth
(known as tusks), even though they have clovenhooves. With regard to
rabbits and rodents that eat plants, they have claws and not cloven
hooves (so they are not kosher).
Unclean birds include all those that have hooked beaks or talons;
these are birds that eat carcasses and carrion, such as falcons,
vultures, owls, kites and (some types of) parrots.
(b)
It is forbidden for the Jew to eat the flesh of animals if they have
not been slaughtered by onewho is qualified to slaughter, in the
lawful manner, after reciting the blessing or prayer for slaughter.
(c)
It is also forbidden to eatcertain parts of animals, such as the sciatic nerve.
(d)
It is also forbidden to eatmeat from which the blood has not been
drained by means of salting (washing away remaining blood and salt,
after putting salt on the meat and leaving it for an hour).
(e)
It is permissible to eat fish that have fins and scales. As for other
sea creatures such as shrimp,octopus and so on, they are forbidden.
The same applies to shellfish.
(f)
It is permissible for the Jew to eat four types of locust, but it is
forbiddenfor him to eat other insects and reptiles.
(g)
It is forbidden to eat meat and milk at the same time. Hence it is
forbidden to cook meat in ghee (clarified butter)or butter; rather it
must be cooked in vegetable oil. It is also forbidden toeat meat and
cheese or butter and the like in one meal, and one must wait six hours
between eating one and the other.
It is even forbidden to put meat in a vessel in which milk or cheese
was previously put, or touse the same knife to cutmeat and cheese and
thelike. Hence restaurants that offer kosher food have to have two
sets of vessels, one for cooking meat and another for milk.
It is not forbidden for the Jew to eat any kinds of vegetables or
fruits; however it is not permissible for him to eat from the first
four harvests of a tree. There is also a specific prohibition on yeast
during the festival of Passover. It is also forbidden for the Jew to
drink wine that was prepared or even handled by a non-Jewishperson.
To a large extent these laws led to the Jews becoming somewhat
isolated. Daily food affects the rhythm of a person's life and
controlshis social relationships with others, because theperson who
eats food that is different from thefood of others will find himself
separated from them, whether he wants to or not; he cannot share their
daily life with them. Even those Jews who have tried to overcome
Jewish isolationism have found it difficult to give up Jewish food,
because it is not easy for a person to change the food that he is used
to.
The necessity of having birds and animals slaughtered by a qualified
slaughterman according to their laws made it impossible for the Jew to
live outside ofthe Jewish community.
Reform Jews have criticised the food laws, because they prevented the
Jews from developing and assimilating; they are of the view that these
laws do not have any religious or moral foundation, so they do not
adhere to them.
Jews in Western societies have been faced with difficulties in
obtaining food that is lawful for them, in places where there are no
kosher food shops to meet their needs.
In Israel the Chief Rabbinate has tried hardto implement the food laws
in public life, such as on airlines and in hotels and restaurants.
The majority of Jews in the United States and Soviet Union (more than
80% of them), who form the vast majority of the world's Jews, do not
apply any of the food laws; rather many of them eat pork and no more
than 4% of them follow all of the food laws.
It is no different in Israel, where approximately 30,000 people work
in raising and selling pigs. It seemsthat more than half of the Jewish
inhabitants of Israel eat pork, including many prominent figures in
society – ministers and generals and even members of the Knesset –
even though they had agreed to propose a banon the selling of pork.
There are a number of companies in Israel that raise pigs, slaughter
them and sell the meat; the most significant of them is Kibbutz
Mazara.
The religious parties at present are putting a great deal of pressure
on the Israeli government to issue a law prohibiting the selling of
pork.
As for the secularists, they fear that this wouldlead to pork being
sold on the black market, which would be detrimental to tourism and
the economy, and would force Israelis to go into Arab Christian areas
to buy pork, just asthey go into Arab areas during Passover to buy
regular bread.
From time to time discussions flare up about food that is lawfully
permissible, especially since some of the members of
religiousinstitutions use their authority to issue certificates of
permissibility for personal gain.
In 1987 CE, the Rabbinateannounced that a certain type of tuna was not
kosher, even thoughthe Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of
America (or Orthodox Union) had issued a statement saying that it was
kosher. It was understood from this that the Rabbinate in Israel
wanted to expand its influence and dominate the kosher certification
process completely.
The conflict between theSephardim (Jews who came from Spain and
Portugal) and Ashkenazim (Jews who came from Germany and France) is
also reflected in the kosher certification process. Thus we find that
the Ashkenazi Rabbinate rejects the certificates issued by the
Sephardi Rabbinate, and vice versa. End quote.
To sum up: there is nothing wrong with the Muslim eating Jewish foods
on which is written the word "kosher", unless it is known that they
have added any alcohol to it.
And Allah knows best.