Albeit a bit late, here is wishing everyone a great Eid.

Last day of Ramadan with Imam Suhaib Webb.

Eid is around the corner. With it comes the dilemma: to celebrate or not to celebrate. It seems this year too, like previous years, Eid will be observed on different days by different mosques. The one I go to has already decided the Eid is on 13th October.

Meanwhile, there have been a couple of good articles at Indian Muslims on Eid. Mirza Faisal Beg reminds us of the beautiful story of Premchand called Idgah and Inam Abidi remembers a family friend on Eid.

A common charge leveled against Muslims is that they don’t condemn terror. Or at the very least, they don’t condemn enough. One ex-PM in India tried to justify the mass-murder of 2000+ innocents in Gujarat in 2002 on this very premise.

Ali Eteraz, provocateur par excellence, writes a good piece in Huffington Post on this issue.

The amount of disinformation about Muslims is disconcerting. One popular smear is that Muslims are in an alliance with the left to take over the West; it is an allegation that far right loves to use.

The other, equally popular and equally absurd, idea is that Muslims do not condemn terrorism. This too makes its way into culture from the right (though judging by comments to my last post, its diffused to some members of the left). Though it is subtler, and argues from insinuation, it is no less pernicious. The implication is that every Muslim in the world who doesn’t engage in terrorism is nevertheless a latent supporter, or enabler, of terrorism because he doesn’t make loud proclamations against it. [Huffington Post]

I think I am a nice dinner guest. I remember a lot of witty anecdotes, have a decent sense of humor and am respectful to others point of view. Unless I am on a table full of Pakistanis.

So, I went to this birthday party thrown by my good friends, a couple actually, one of which is a Pakistani Canadian married to a Pakistani American. Obviously there were a lot of Pakistanis at the dinner and as luck would have it, I was the only Indian. One thing led to another and soon three of us were having a full-fledged argument in a fully crowded cafe. First of all, I am amazed at the absolute necessity of most Indians and Pakistanis to tell the other side how wrong they are. May be they just want an audience to get their message across. I agree that we have come a long way since the time my Indian class-mates kept asking if there was a punishment for rape in Pakistan and my Pakistani cousins wondering if there were mosques in India. That was during the time of Doordarshan and PTV. Thankfully we have moved beyond that. But not by much. Here is a sample from the long argument.

India is not really secular.
It is funny to hear it from a Pakistani whose country constitutionally discriminates on the basis of religion and a non-Muslim can’t be the head of state.
Yes, but it is an un-written rule in India that there will be no non-Hindu head of state.
We just had Kalam as our President.
Yes, but there will be no PM.
But we have a Sikh PM who is a non-Hindu. Then we have Sonia Gandhi who almost became the PM.
There will be no Muslim PM.
Do you know anyone who was capable and discriminated against?
And so on and so on.

A&F, I am sorry for ruining your birthday party, even though I was no more than a 33% culprit.

Today was my first without-sahri roza. The friend who normally wakes us up went to the mosque early in the morning and the rest got up late. It was tough. In the morning I was in a dilemma  whether to continue with my roza or not as I was also not feeling well. Ultimately, I got some strength, alhumdulillah, and continued with my fast.

This reminds me of my childhood days. When I was in junior high-school, I could attend classes till after-noon, play cricket in scorching heat afterwards and still go on with my roza.

BTW, have you ever missed sahri in Ramadan?

This is the MOST HONEST view of sectarian differences within Islam I have seen yet. I must give credit to Maulana Ishaq for the candor he spoke with. I have never seen anyone speaking with such honesty before, and I have listened to hundreds of sermons. Coming from an Ahl-e-Hadith scholar, it is all the more amazing.

These 30 minutes are worth your time if you are troubled with the sectarian conflict within Islam.

What do you really possess,
and what have you gained?
What pearls have you brought up
from the depth of the sea?
On the day of death,
bodily senses will vanish:
do you have the spiritual light
to accompany your heart?
When dust fills these eyes in the grave,
will your grave shine bright?

– Mathnawi II:939-941
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
Rumi: Daylight
Threshold Books, 1994
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahy? Monastra)

There is this Yahoo! Group that sends out English translation of selected Rumi verses everyday. No spamming, never more than a post, beautiful.

Sheikh Abdal-Hakim Murad writes on jihad, apostasy and women rights at On Faith: Newsweek.

Born Timothy Winter, the British native Sheikh Murad attended the Westminster School and studied Arabic at Cambridge before converting to Islam and studying at al-Azhar University in Cairo. After spending time in Jeddah, Murad returned to his alma mater, where he now serves as the Sheikh Zayed Lecturer in Islami Studies and Director of the Sunna Project at Cambridge’s Centre for Middle Eastern Studies. [Georgetown Univ.]

Last Sunday was the 800th birth anniversary of Rumi. Read more at Indian Muslims and BBC News. And I am feeling much better now, alhumdulillah.