Anniversary and shiites

Anniversaries and birthdays are really important days.I just don't understand why ppl sometimes don't make a big deal out of it.its disheartening for me to know someone who s husband is away from home the night of her wedding anniversary.I think there s just no excuse for it.i mean, for arguments sake, even if ure already married for 24 years,not only is it not a reason for you to think that u can get away with it,now is really the time to make things better,not becos u promised her that you re going to live and die for her,no not becos of that,but becos its the right thing to do and its your wife's god given right that you re there with her on your wedding’s anniversary night.

 

Yesterday evening I went to City Circle gathering, and this weeks topic was a debate on Islam and its competabillity with Liberalism.I thought the introduction speech given by the 3 speakers were quite good, they had Alice Kneen  from Magdalene college Cambridge Uni representing the so called liberals, Richard Stone who is the President of Alif-Aleph , a society/trust working towards coalition of British Muslims and British Jews as minorities in UK, and Asim Sidiqui himself, as the chairman of city circle. Ive always wanted to attend their event for the past 9 months, but I always had other excuses.But when Bro Wan Saiful told me about this weeks event, I had no more excuses in my pocket to show him! The talk was ok lah, wasn’t controversial, maybe because the people attending it didn’t have the patience to not be too emotional ( yes the Muslims). Alice was going on and on about how Liberalism, whos core value is liberty, could never have Muslims as part of its so called social system, and the fact that Muslims in Britain actively participated in the last council elections doesn’t mean that theres cohesion in the community.Confused?

 

I don’t think id be able to elabore much about the talk.Maybe you could find better bloggers talking about Islam and Liberalism by just googling it.The Q and A was not as ‘stimulating’ as far as brother Wan was concerned, and I was not in the room for a long time as I stumbled upon an old friend of mine, Mustafa Fields who is a leader for the Ahlul Bayt group, which represents the Shiites Youth and Students in the UK.

 

I knew Mustafa through our political networks among Muslim students in UK.A while back I wrote a letter to some friends, ( edited for this blog ) but maybe it is important for Malaysian Muslims in particular to open up their eye on getting to know more Shiites. I was told that there are many lectures in UIA and UM are shiites by conversion, ( the 12 imam shiites group) its just that they don’t disclose themselves.well I don’t blame them.Look at how they are being treated in London!

 

Note for abbreviations used.

ISOC: Islamic Societies in Universities in Uk and Ireland

FOSIS: Federation of Students Islamic Societies in UK and Ireland – the national body of all ISOCs representing almost 70,000 muslim students

MCB: Muslim Council of Britain- the coalition of all muslim and islamic organisations in UK. (ill write about them later,attending their AGM tomorrow)

 

 

From: wmfirdaus
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:49 AM
To:
Subject:

Importance: High

 

Dear Friends,

 

I hope this email will clarify many myths on our previous discussion.

 

Myth No. 1: Shiah do not want to unite with sunnis

 

Lets not talk about the isocs above,but the point of the matter is simple.As far as unity is concerned, the AB’s are very clear on this point.They should only be one main body representing Muslim students on campus,shiah or non shiah , and that is FOSIS.As a matter of fact, I wouldlike to remind those salafis out there that shiah has been in Isocs and in FOSIS long long way since the 1970 and the 1980’s.Its just that back then, the people who were in control of the Islamic Societies ( yes you know how im talking about) were reasonably enough not to kick their praying stones out of the isocs prayer room, and pushing the patience to the limit.

 

Shiites students in general ALWAYS supports Sunni Muslim students organisation.as a matter of fact, i know many ISOC execs in this country who are shiites.its just that because their isoc don’t neglect them as others do ( or kick their stones) that’s why they can live in peace.

 

I don’t buy this argument that this shiites are doing this and that to divide us.It is those among us the sunnis who are to arrogant to accept diversity which are causing the problems.Well, as much as u wish that East London or Wembley would be like Mecca or Medina, maybe u ought to accept that its just gonna be East London, or maybe a little bit more like Baghdad..for that matter.

 

 

Myth No.2 : If we allow shiah to have their own society, why don’t we allow for sufis to have their own Mawlid Soc.

 

 

Who are we to tell people whether they should or should not have societies? Furthermore than that, do you not think that some groups ( ie sufis,salafis,and not to mention the ‘Ikh’ ) are also doing this on Isocs?Of course its easier for this group like this Salafis in london taking over all the ex polytechnics unis around london, and trying to make them llots as salafi as possible.Of course, as much as we would disagree with this, people wouldn’t put too much of an issue on it because no one thinks that Salafi or sufi or ‘Ikh’ as non muslims..

 

Hence, the real problem.Which is that some of us actually believes that this shiites people are actually non muslim, and that they are even WORSE than those real nonmuslims out there because they think that this Shiah are bringing a deviated version of islam..

 

It is because of the above prejudice that shiites are being treated worse than others.And it does not surprise me that after 30 years of integration in Islamic societies under FOSIS, as their number increase ( and the number of this hardhitting salafi s and shiite haters also increase) in ISOCs, both sides can neither feel or believe in integration.May I remind you, that Shiites and sunni problem usually occur only on campuses where the numbers of both sides are very high.( hence, London based iSocs and some other major city isocs)

 

Believe you me, if the sunnis in Isocs treat this people nicely, they would have no reason to have their own different isoc.One shiite sister who is a london ISOC sisters exec said to me that in her islamic society she didn’t felt threatened as how her friends are in some other London unis.the numbers of Shiite in her university are quite high, but I guess the fact that u have clever muslims in this particular London University does help to produce more reasonable muslims (sunnis and shiites)

 

 

Myth No.3 : Shiites wants to have their own Friday prayers???

 

“When Shia students pray in Jamat behind a Sunni imam, they don't actually make the intention of praying in jamaat, but of praying individually and then they just perform the actions at the same time as the imam. Similarly they don't have the intention of being at jummah. Therefore, once you start down this slippery slope of let the Shias have this, and let the Sunnis do that, you'll end up having complete separation on most things, and so in effect you will have two societies, with the Shias having separate Jamats, and different Jummah times, and everything else.”

 

This is the MOST ridiculous nonsensical thing that I have heard about the shiites. Come on guys, do you really think this is baghdad? Do u really think they are out there to prove to us so much that there are different and that they don’t want to be under the United Islam banner?Seriously man, think about it. We re not in a situation where the Sunni minorities are overulling a shiites majority or vice versa, we re at a situation that we are in country where we are all minorities and that all of us who are reasonable should know better that to have to Jumaah is the most ridiculous idea of all! For goodness sake, you ve a united Jewish community and a united Christian congregation or church and whatever and we cant even agree to pray with the shiites??As a matter of fact, it’s really is an insult to them, and I say them as our brothers in Islam (although some of you might disagree with this) if you really think  that they believe in disunity.. They march together with us on many rallies, and they are in the same front with us on many things like palestine, just because some of them got disgruntled and kicked out of ISOC and setup some new Society, that doesn’t mean that to have another jumaah across the country is their vision!

 

OK maybe some of you will point out that many shiahs actualy pray jumaah in their own mosque and stuff, but hey, doesn’t the holy arab man travelled 20 miles of Birmingham area just to go to an arab based mosque in central brummyland just because the mosque behind his house speaks urdu in his khutbah( and hence,less hollier than the holy arab)Remember guys, for every one finger u point at the other side, there 3 more finger which points back at you!its easy to point out to others peoples mistake, while not realising one at our own backyard.Or just infront of us.

 

Myth 4: There s no way Sunnis and Shiah can integrate fully.

 

Someone told me that in MCB, they always have 2 congregationof prayers at MCB meetings,one for sunnis and one for shiah.But when a brother who s name I will not disclose came into MCB, all he did was to bridge the gap by doing one simple thing, which is to fulfll the special request of the shiah.You must be thinking what is this special request? Or maybe you re thinking, why did this brother adhered to the request of this so called ‘non sunnis’ !

 

I was told by this person that the shiites, one of the main rules in their congregation prayers is that the IMAM must read a full verse after the Alfatihah, meaning if the IMAM starts by reading the 1^st verse of albaqarah, then he MUST go through untill the 3^rd Juzu before they can do Ruku’!

 

Anyways, maybe the above is something new for you,( it was for me at least), but back to the story, the request by the shiah was that the brother must fulfill the above rule.

 

I must say that it is amazing that it took a non british muslim (Jordanian/Palestinian) to unite the british muslim in MCB on such a small matter, and alhamdulillah, I am told that since then, they only prayed one congregation in MCB meetings simply because the IMAM read short surahs after the alfatihah, hence fulfilling the request of the shiites.

 

I will not dwell on why this never happened before in MCB since 1997,but im sure the fact that sometimes we muslims, we are just too hard on those whom we think are different.And further to that, in the case of British muslims, the fact that you do not see yourself as of equal to each other, Sunnis v Shiah, Pakistanis v Arabs, Bangladeshis v Pakistanis and so on, all this stupid problems of the ummah in London and in UK in general will never get solved.

 

It only takes a few of us Muslim students leaders to educate the many others out there that our internal problems should be the least of our problems.How many times must we be reminded that the other minority communities are united, but at the end of the day,the active muslims in britain keeps failing to be honest to themselves, embrace each others difference, and unite.Unity is not about being in MCB, but its about telling your communities through the different mosque you control that look, we re in Britain, live up to the difference and that difference between Sunnis and Shiah is less of an issue compared to our ummahs struggle in UK.

 

I would like to end by just saying that I personally believe that FOSIS is the best place for all of you british muslims, either you are Pakistani,Bangladeshi,Arab or Sunni or shiiah or salafi or sufi or whatever, to LEARN to accept and UNDERSTAND each others difference.The old guards in MCB today never had this chance, they never went through British universities and ISOCs where they had to learn to accept all this differences, but you guys have a different challenge today.Its not fair for you to kick the shiah out or for you to sideline them.Sit withthem, understand their difference.Im sure MANY of us do not even know the full details of the difference between a sunni and a shiah.The idea that just because our fathers and our uncles at the East London mosque  keeps on telling us that the guy whos praying with stone on his forehead is kuffar,well this is the problem.We have to uall unites as MUSLIM students who believe in the prophet and in Allah, and no one, be it a shiah, a salafi, a wahabi, a sufi, an ‘Ikh..’, a HT, or even a majnun, to be excluded.

 

 

I congratulate you if you have read this far.insya allah, the future of the British muslims rest upon your shoulders.

 

 

Firdaus the radical middle way ‘ikh….’