Saving Muslim Women?

Prophets and Profit

The Mystery of the Holy Grail

UK £3.00

issue 15 vol.2January 2014

Mandela’s legacy must live on

2

Disclaimer: Where opinion is expressed it is that of the author and does not nec-essarily coincide with the editorial views of the publisher or islam today. All infor-mation in this magazine is verified to the best of the authors’ and the publisher’s ability. However, islam today shall not be liable or responsible for loss or damage arising from any users’ reliance on information obtained from the magazine.

January 2014

Issue, 15 Vol, 2 Published Monthly

islam today magazine intends to address the concerns and aspirations of a vibrant Muslim community by providing readers with inspiration, information, a sense of community and solutions through its unique and specialised contents. It also sets out to help Muslims and non-Muslims better understand and appreciate the nature of a dynamic faith.

Publisher: Islamic Centre of England 140 Maida Vale London, W9 1QB - UK

ISSN 2051-2503

Managing Director Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour

Chief Editor Amir De Martino

Managing Editor Anousheh Mireskandari

Political Editor Reza Murshid

Health Editor Laleh Lohrasbi

Art Editor Moriam Grillo

Layout and Design Sasan Sarab – Michele Paolicelli

Design and Production PSD UK Ltd.

Information info@islam-today.net

Letters to the Editor letters@islam-today.net

Contributions & Submissions submit@islam-today.net

Subscriptions subscriptions@islam-today.net

www.islam-today.net

Follow us on facebook www.facebook.com/islamtodaymag

Ahmad Haneef

Alexander Khaleeli

Ali Jawad

Batool Haydar

Cleo Cantone

Francis Gilbert

Frank Julian Gelli

Hamid Waqar

Mohsen Biparva

Muhammad Reza Amirinia

Contact us

Editorial team

Back CoverA 30 feet steel sculpture to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Mandela’s capture. Designed by Marco CianfanelliLocated in Howick, South Africa

CoverHand print of Mandela 46664 was Mandela’s prison numberin Robben Island

Islamic Centre of England

3

From the Editor5 Prisoner ‘46664’

News6 News from around the world

Life & Community 10 Sukuk - A Progression of Islamic

Finance

Hamid Waqar presents an in-depth expla-

nation of the ins and outs of one of the

most popular Islamic contracts; sukuk

14 Me, myself and God

Batool Haydar thinks that the best ‘me

time’ is that which is spent on nurturing

the essential relationship our soul has

with God

Arts20 Masterpiece

‘30 Days of Running in the Space’- Ahmed

Basiony

21 In the spotlight

Nermine Hammam - Digital manipulation

and painting

22 Photography

Khalil Nemmaoui, Morocco

The Place to BE

The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar

Hajj: The Journey Through Art

23 Heritage

The Ferozkoh (Turquoise Mountain)

exhibition - Leighton House

Addendum

Moderate Enlightenment, 2007- Gouache

on wasli Imran Qureshi (born 1972)

24 Leighton House Museum

Obsessed with an idealised Islamic past,

Lord Leighton’s legacy is where east meets

west says Cleo Cantone

Review28 Saving Muslim Women?

Why did Afghan women not throw off

their burqas after the Taliban were over-

thrown? Mohsen Biparva finds the answer

in a new book by Lila Abu-Lughod

Cover32 Mandela’s legacy must live on

Remembrance ceremonies for Mandela

have attracted a plethora of world leaders

to South Africa. Reza Murshid questions if

their presence does justice to the memory

of Mandela

Feature 36 Migration in the name of faith

The inclusive paradigm by which Islam

views all peoples and nations has encour-

aged Muslims to look outwards and inter-

act with other cultures, says Ali Jawad

Opinion 40 Education for Sale?

Changes to our education system have

helped to create some very wealthy people

instead of helping needy students, believes

Francis Gilbert

Faith 44 Prophets and Profit: an Islamic

perspective on wealth

Alexander Khaleeli explains the Prophetic

narration, ‘This world is a prison for the

believer and a paradise for the disbe-

liever.’

48 From Knowledge to Belief

There is a close relation between knowl-

edge, belief and action. Ahmad Haneef

traces the process of acquiring belief and

the path leading to it

4

Glossary of Islamic Symbols The letters [swt] after the name of Allah [swt] (God), stand for

the Arabic phrase

subhanahu wa-ta’ala meaning: “Glorious and exalted be He”.

The letter [s] after the name of the Prophet Muhammad[s],

stands for the Arabic phrase sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam,

meaning: “May Allah bless him and grant him peace”.

The letter [a] after the name of the Imams from the progeny

of the Prophet Muhammad[s], and for his daughter Fatimah[a]

stands for the Arabic phrase ‘alayhis-salaam, ‘alayhas-salaam (feminine) and ‘alayhimus-salaam (plural) meaning

respectively: (God’s) Peace be with him/ her/ them.

Interfaith52 The Mystery of the Holy Grail

The Holy Grail, whatever its elusive nature,

is of high spiritual interest to people of the

sister monotheistic faiths, says Frank Gelli

Health 56 Can HIV cells cure Cancer?

Experimental procedures on a six-year-old

leukaemia sufferer raise the question of

how far medical science should go to find

cures for acute illnesses?

58 Milk Teeth: Beyond a fairy tale

To have a healthy set of adult teeth we

should first look after our milk teeth, says

Laleh Lohrasbi

Places60 St Petersburg; A Northern Jewel

Mohammad Reza Amirinia travels to

St Petersburg and finds a city that has

embraced the present but also retained its

historical splendour

What & Where66 Listings and Events

Friday Nights Thought Forum - Islamic Centre of England

The Muslim DNA - A two day personal development

course – AlKauthar Institute

Islamic Soundscapes in China; Conference – SOAS

Love Muhammad; The Prophet of Mercy - World Forum

Proximity

Islamic Civilisation and the Islamic Tradition; past and

present (Edinburgh University)

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: A Critical Perspective

– LSE

Qalam: the art of beautiful writing - Birmingham Muse-

ums and Art Gallery

Child Abuse and Neglect - The Muslim Institute

Agency and Gender in Gaza….. – LSE

Documentary film and discussion - Birmingham Museums

and Art

6th Annual Winter Walk for Gaza (London & Manches-

ter) - Muslim Hands

‘Can Muslims Escape Misogyny?’ Conference - The Deen

Institute

The Arab Uprising: results and prospects - LSE

Writing Competition - The Young Muslim Writers Awards

Spiritual Mysteries and Ethical Secrets - Islamic Centre

of England

5

In 1964 Mandela was arrested by the South African police and impris-oned on Robben Island. He was the 466th prisoner to arrive that year.

His prison number 46664 was in fact a combination of prisoner number and the year of his arrival. In this issue of islam today our designer has chosen to put together two elements to tell a concise story: The Hand and the Number.

The hand at the centre of the cover is Mandela’s own handprint, which is his own artwork known as the ‘Hand of Africa’. The African continent at the centre is said to have appeared by accident, but is nevertheless highly significant. The number 46664 has been overlaid with the flags of those influential countries which were either associated with the foundation of the apartheid state or supportive of it till the end, especially Great Britain and the United States of America.

Mandela’s incarceration lasted almost three decades. Eighteen of these years were spent in a small concrete cell where he slept on a straw mat. He was abused and tortured by the guards. His eyesight was damaged by the long hours he was forced to toil in the prison quarry in the searing sunlight. His jailer did not permit him to attend his mother’s funeral, nor that of his son when he died some time later. Not many

would have been able to withstand this kind of maltreatment.

Even though Reagan and Thatcher sided with the apartheid regime and ignored his calls for change, Mandela forgave and later met them. Mandela was no prophet and yet people believed in him wholeheartedly, especially the downtrodden masses who yearned to be delivered from years of suffering and marginalisation.

Prophetic characteristics can be present in all human beings. In the case of Mandela his capacity for forgiveness stood out. Upon his release he sought to move South Africa on from its diabolical past, reconciling oppressor and oppressed in a new, racially equal “rainbow” nation.

As Muslims we are not strangers to the narrative of forgiveness. Our great Prophet Muhammad(s) - whose birthday we commemorate this month - amazed everyone when he returned triumphant to his native Makkah after many years of persecution, opposition and military attacks. His Makkan tormentors would have expected a severe retribution from him but instead they received the promise of forgiveness and a general pardon.

Prophets are our examples for how to live and use our resources to benefit the whole of humanity. They

are strong and unbending individuals with an overwhelming ability to love. They aim to unify instead of exacting revenge and seek dialogue over diktat. They endeavour to win the hearts and minds of people, not just their compli-ance. Their divine mandate is what makes them special but from time to time their qualities are manifested in ordinary people. They have taught us that although inferior in worldly power and means, the righteousness of one’s cause allied to an unyielding resolve can positively change the world. If we respect Mandela today it is because we have seen in him the reflection of a character familiar to us, someone we love with all our heart, our beloved Prophet Muhammad(s). Whenever we recognise his qualities in others we will always be drawn towards them.

True leaders have the ability to trans-late vision into reality and ultimately they empower their people. Mandela was a man, a lawyer, a visionary leader but not a saint. He was a great figure in history, not above it and we salute him as a dear friend. •

‘Prisoner 46664’

EditorFrom the

6

Police force approves hijab for female cops Police in the Canadian city of Edmonton have approved a design for a headscarf for Muslim female officers.

The hijab design covers the head and neck, but not the face, according to a press release issued by Edmonton Police Services (EPS).

EPS currently does not have any applicants requesting to wear a hijab but police wanted to be proactive and ‘reflect the changing diversity in the community, and to facilitate the growing interest in policing careers from Edmonton’s Muslim community,’ it said.

‘Regardless of race, culture, religion, or sexual orientation, it is important that anyone who has a calling to serve and protect Edmontonians, and passes the rigorous recruitment and police training standards, feels welcome and included in the EPS,’ said spokesman Kevin Galvin.

Police said the changes to the tradi-tional garment have been supported by members of Edmonton’s Muslim community.

OIC report shows Islamophobia on the rise in the WestThe Organisation of Islamic Coopera-tion’s annual Islamophobia report has criticised what it calls a ‘culture of intolerance of Islam and Muslims’ in the West.

The OIC report is comprised of five main chapters and several annexes aimed at documenting ‘incidents of slandering and demeaning Muslims and their sacred symbols including attacks on mosques, verbal abuse and physical attacks against adherents of Islam, mainly due to their cultural traits.’

The report points to ‘the institution-alisation of Islamophobia’ in Western countries saying: ‘… the film, “Inno-cence of Muslims”, the publication and reprints of provocative materials by several European newspapers including the most recent one entitled “Tyranny of Silence”, the infamous “Burn A Qur’an Day” move by a Florida Pastor, the Congressional hearings by the Chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on Home-land Security on the “radicalisation of American Muslims” in Washington DC on March 11, 2011, together with the anti-Muslim rhetoric by some right-wing conservative politicians and new emerging Islamophobes, have contrib-uted enormously to snowballing Islamo-phobia and manipulating the mind set of ordinary Western people to develop a

“phobia” of Islam and Muslims.’

According to the OIC report, the ‘perpetuation of Islamophobia…has become increasingly widespread, which, in turn, has caused an increase in the actual number of hate crimes committed against Muslims. These crimes range from the usual verbal abuse and discrimination, particularly in the fields of education and employment, to other acts of violence and vandalism, including physical assaults, attacks on Islamic centres and the desecration of mosques and cemeteries.’

The OIC report suggests that freedom of expression is used as a pretext to allow attacks on Islam. In this manner, protection is given to ‘the perpetrators of Islamophobia, who seek to propagate irrational fear and intolerance of Islam, [who] have time and again aroused unwarranted tension, suspicion and unrest in societies by slandering the Islamic faith through gross distor-tions and misrepresentations and by encroaching on, and denigrating, the religious sentiments of Muslims.’

OIC tells Myanmar to respect Muslims’ rightsAt the end of a three-day tour, the Organisation of the Islamic Confer-ence (OIC) has told Buddhist-majority

A m

odel

wea

ring

the

EP

S U

nifo

rm w

ith h

ijab

head

scar

f opt

ion

News

CANADA GUINEA

MYANMAR

7

Myanmar to repeal ‘laws restricting fundamental freedoms’ after more than 240 Muslims were killed by Buddhist mobs during 2013.

Before the OIC delegates left Myanmar, they visited minority ethnic Rohingya Muslims who fled the violence and are now living in squalid conditions in camps along the border with Bangla-desh in Myanmar’s Arakan state, also known as Rakhine.

Headed by Secretary General Ekme-leddin Ihsanoglu, the OIC delegation called on the government to continue legal reforms.

According to press reports, the Myanmar government responded by saying it would help ‘put an end to all acts of violence, protect the civilian population from violence and ensure full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including in Rakhine State.’

Myanmar has refused to grant citizen-ship to 800,000 Rohingya and told them to ‘return’ to Muslim-majority Bangla-desh even though many Rohingya have lived on the Myanmar side of the border for generations.

About 3,000 Buddhists led by robed

monks marched through Sittwe, capital of Arakan state, to protest against the OIC’s involvement in the Southeast Asian nation’s ethnic problems.

The protesters also converged on Sittwe’s airport to voice their anger when the OIC delegates’ plane arrived, before the officials transferred to heli-

copters to reach the Rohingyas’ isolated camps.

About 5,000 of the 240,000 Rohingya who fled their homes because of the clashes welcomed the OIC when the delegates visited camps for internally displaced people near Sittwe.

The 57 nations that comprise the OIC make it the world’s largest international Islamic organisation. The OIC describes itself as ‘the collective voice of the Muslim world.’ It has a permanent delegation at the United Nations.

Muslims Worldwide pay tribute to Nelson Mandela

Palestine

Palestinian leaders heaped praise on Nelson Mandela after the death of the revolutionary South African leader. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said:

‘The Palestinian people will never forget his historic statement that the South African revolution will not have achieved its goals as long as the Pales-tinians are not free.’

Hamas called Mandela one of the biggest supporters of the Palestinian cause. Today a great freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela has died, one of the world’s most important symbols of freedom,’ said senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk.

Iran

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani tweeted: ‘With a heavy heart, we say goodbye to Nelson Mandela. Surely, his legacy will remain a source of inspira-tion and courage for all people.’

Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s former foreign minister, praised Mandela for playing a pivotal role in the fight against racism. Velayati said the Islamic Republic of Iran was the first country Mandela visited before he took office in 1994.

Former Iranian Presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also paid tribute to Mandela. Rafsanjani said that South African anti-apartheid revolutionary figure had told him that ‘Iran was the ideal destination for South Africans as the Islamic Republic had also experi-enced many difficulties over its resist-ance to repression and dictatorship.’

USA

The Council on American-Islamic Rela-tions (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation in the United States, said in a statement that

MANDELA TRIBUTES

8

his death was a loss for all humanity and that the South African leader will remain an example to those fighting for human rights.

The statement said: ‘throughout his life, Nelson Mandela served as an example of strength in adversity to all those fighting for freedom and justice. His legacy of uncompromising perseverance in the face of bigotry and injustice will live on for generations to come. He was a unique historic figure. From his jail cell, he demonstrated vision and courage, and taught the world the true meaning of steadfastness. Outside his cell, he demonstrated statesmanship, reconciliation and pragmatism. As the Prophet Muhammad(s) said: “For every day on which the sun rises, there is a (reward) for the one who establishes justice among people.” ’

Muslim Separatists on verge of peace deal with ManilaMuslim separatists in the Philippines have moved a step closer to a landmark peace deal with Manila that will give them autonomy, but there remain significant obstacles to an end to violence.

The two sides have reached agreement on sharing power in Muslim-dominated parts of the southern Philippines and hope to reach a final deal in the coming weeks.

‘We are in the home stretch,’ said Amado M Mendoza Jr, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines who is monitoring the negotiations.

The deal seeks to bring peace to the southern Philippines which has been racked by violence for more than a century. Many Muslims in the region believe that the Christian-dominated government in the north has oppressed them and taken their resources.

Muslim separatist groups, fuelled by such sentiments and by grinding poverty in the country’s south, have been fighting for an independent state for decades. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and has caused the resource-rich southern Philippine island of Mindanao to lag behind the rest of the country in economic and social development.

In October 2012, the Philippine govern-ment signed a framework peace agree-ment with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the country’s largest Muslim insurgent group. That was followed in July by a wealth-sharing deal in which the two parties agreed that 75 percent of the tax revenue from metallic minerals mined in the region would stay

in Mindanao. In addition, 50 percent of the taxes collected from fossil fuels developed in the region would remain.

The details of the power-sharing agreement have not been released, but government officials indicated that the national government would retain authority over national defence, foreign policy and monetary issues. The newly formed autonomous region, to be called Bangsamoro, is expected to have broad local powers.

The announcement noted that the two sides were still negotiating an agree-ment on what was termed ‘Bangsamoro waters.’ ‘This is probably a reference to the control of coastal resources in the autonomous region,’ Mr Mendoza said. The Philippine Department of Energy has identified untapped oil and gas reserves in the Sulu Sea, along the coast of the Bangsamoro area.

Another aspect of the agreement to be negotiated involves what the two parties call the ‘normalisation’ of armed fighters in the insurgent group. This would involve incorporating the fighters into the Philippine military, the local police or other government security forces.

The most sensitive aspect of the next round of negotiations is likely to be the disarmament of the fighters who do not join the government military or security forces. The government forged a peace deal in the 1990s with another separa-tist group, the Moro National Liberation Front, but many fighters retained their weapons, and violence continued.

Hajj app intends to help pilgrims The Hajj can be a gruelling journey, full of physical and mental demands. With three million pilgrims packed into Makkah, it’s easy for things to go wrong. A UAE - based company has recently released the HajjSalam app to help pilgrims perform their religious duties.

‘Our goal is to help Muslims focus on the spiritual aspects of Hajj by relieving

News

UAE

PHILIPPINES

9

some of the pressure of the process and logistical challenges that cause so many issues,’ said Ali Dabaja, founder and CEO.

The HajjSalam app, which works in real time and recognises the user’s location, prompts pilgrims with the prayers and rituals they are supposed to perform at any given moment. There’s even a counter for the ‘tawaf,’ a ritual where pilgrims are supposed to circumam-bulate the Kaaba - the holy sanctuary that was built by Abraham and his son Ishmael - seven times.

Released last year by Mobily, a Saudi Arabian mobile phone company, the Hajj AR App has a camera that guides pilgrims to where they need to be. Other apps include mapping technology, and a Hajj journal that can integrate with social media platforms so pilgrims can tweet or post Facebook updates. There are at least 15-20 free Hajj apps

Dozens of women take part in the Inter Faith netball tournamentA netball tournament was organised by Tameena Hussain, 24, of Aldebury Road and Sergeant Helen Kenny from Thames Valley Police

Taking place for the second year at Cox Green Leisure Centre in Highfield Lane, women were encouraged to come down and take part for free.

Tameena said: “This helps to bring about better understanding and cohe-sion within our diverse communities.

“It’s for them to take part and build those relationships.

“It’s not about being competitive, it’s about having fun and making new friends”.

Sgt Kenny added: “I think it is important to strengthen the relationship between women and the police so that people are confident to come to us with issues

that we can resolve.

“Sport is a great way to break down barriers and build trust”.

Inter Faith Week ran all last week across England, Northern Ireland and Wales to highlight work done by inter-faith groups, celebrate diversity and encourage interaction between people from different backgrounds.

Safeway Apologises to Muslim WorkerSafeway, the second largest superstore chain in North America, has given a job back to a Muslim woman who was told she couldn’t wear her Islamic headscarf while at work at its El Dorado Hills, California., service station.

Rosemary Hassan was originally told by a manager she could wear the scarf, but an assistant manager didn’t get the memo, and told Hassan to remove the scarf or quit. Hassan quit.

But after learning of the incident, Safeway managers said the company’s policies allow headscarves, and offered Hassan her job back.

‘I felt my beliefs are stronger than a job, even though it was a really good job,’ Hassan said.

But now, Safeway said it was all a misun-derstanding. The company does have a dress code, but said, ‘the company does adjust these standards where needed to accommodate religious needs of employees.’ Safeway said she can have her job back and wear hijab.

Hassan said she’d like to put this all behind her and return to work, as long as she’s able to wear her hijab.

Pope urges coexistence, says Qur’an does not condone violence Pope Francis has issued his first Apos-tolic Exhortation (Evangelii Gaudium), translated into English as The Joy of the Gospel. In the 224-page document, the Pope has contrasted ‘violent fundamen-talism’ with ‘authentic Islam.’

The latter, he wrote, was ‘opposed to every form of violence.’

Attacks on Christian communities in the Middle East have left in their wake hundreds of victims and played havoc with Christian communities that have coexisted with Muslims for over 14 centuries.

While urging Christians to ‘avoid hateful generalisations’ about Islam, the Pope also called ‘humbly’ on Islamic countries to guarantee full religious freedom to Christians.

The Pope concluded the discussion by asserting that ‘authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Qur’an are opposed to every form of violence.’

Pope Francis I

VATICAN

UK

US

10

Following our previous articles on aspects of Islamic finance and the interest generated by the 9th World Islamic Economic Forum held in London, we have been requested by our readers to discuss in more detail how shari’ah compliant financial transactions work. Here Hamid Waqar presents an in-depth explanation of the ins and outs of one of the most popular contracts; sukuk

SUKUKA Progressionof Islamic Finance

11

12

Islam is a religion that teaches man to excel in all dimensions of life. It teaches man how to deal with any situation in such a way that

he can secure divine satisfaction. One important aspect of life is his financial dealings. Islam has not been silent in this aspect - rather many principles have been provided allowing one to derive financial recommendations and prohibitions from them.

There are plenty of rules pertaining to trade, partnership, banking, investment, and loans. There are also areas of finan-cial transactions which are prohibited, for instance interest (riba) and anything to do with sinful products, such as wine and alcohol. The main areas which constitute a prohibited and invalid financial transaction from the Islamic point of view are: speculation (maysir), unjust enrichment or unfair exploita-tion, interest, and uncertainty (gharrar).

A sukuk is an Islamic finan-cial investment scheme and some forms of it have been approved by the shari’ah. The official definition provided by the Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) is that sukuk certifi-cates are: “certificates of equal value representing undivided shares in the ownership of tangible assets, usufructs and services or (in the ownership of) the assets of particular projects or special investment activity.” The sukuk is an actual certificate which proves the ownership of interest in the tangible asset giving the possessor interest in that asset in proportion to his investment.

The sukuk product was developed to address the shortage of Islamic financial schemes which serve as long-term investments and which can be traded on the secondary market. There were reasons that such schemes were rare, such as practicality and shari’ah compliance. The practical aspect was that there was not an existing secondary market where one could trade invest-ments. The sukuk solved this problem because it constitutes real ownership of

a tangible asset allowing the investor to easily trade it. The sukuk product has grown immensely ever since the first sovereign sukuk bond was issued by the Central Bank of Bahrain in 2001.

The most important characteristics of the sukuk product, which are in direct contrast to its conventional cousin, the interest bond, are: First, the sukuk certificate points to a form of joint ownership of the profits of the business project or physical assets. This is why they must be organised in connection with a familiar Islamic partnership contract. The contracts can have condi-tions placed upon them in accordance with the well-known prophetic tradition: “Believers are upon their conditions.”

The second characteristic of Islamic sukuk revolves around the method of distributing profits. The method by which they are distributed is dependent

upon the type of contract that was issued. These fall into three main categories.

The first group is based on the purchase and sale of the loan. It is comprised of the sukuk al-istisna’ and sukuk al-murabaha and is the closest to the conventional interest bond. In this sukuk, the owner receives speci-fied profits over a specified period of time. There are differences of opinion regarding the permissibility of these sukuk. The majority of Shia scholars allow the sale of loans to third parties while the majority of Sunni scholars and a minority of Shia scholars, including Ayatollah Khomeini, consider it to be an instance of interest. An example of this would be if a government decides to develop a highway, but instead of paying the contractors in cash, they

issue sukuk al-istisna’ certificates which the contractor can sell on the secondary market. The contractor then sells the certificates for a specified price and the buyer knows that after a certain amount of time he will receive a percentage of any profits.

The second group is based on the purchase and sale of physical assets. The most prominent sukuk in this category is the sukuk al-ijara, especially with the condition of ownership after the lease agreement is finalised. When the owner of the sukuk certificate sells it to a third party in the secondary market what he is actually doing is selling his portion of the physical asset to the future owner. Islamic scholars are unanimous in condoning this type of contract.

The third group is based on a partner-ship in the profits of an economic

venture. In this sukuk, the owner of the sukuk certificate becomes an investment partner for an economic project. He is given a portion of the profits of the said project in relation to the amount of his certificate. For instance, let us imagine purchasing a sukuk for the building of a metro line. The more progress that is made on the project the more

valuable the sukuk certificates become and when the project finishes the value of the completed project is distributed amongst the owners of the sukuk certificates. Thus, the potential profits of these sukuk certificates are based on predictions that do not necessarily actualise. There is always the risk of a loss.

The third defining feature of the Islamic sukuk is based on securing the principal investment. The difficulty in promising the return of the principal investment from an Islamic perspective is that it takes risk out of the equation. This would seem to be in contradiction to the tradition: “The one who gains [potential] profit [can] incur [potential] loss.” According to this tradition, and the principles of Islamic finance, the investor must have a certain amount

A sukuk is an Islamic financial investment scheme and some forms of it have been

approved by the shari’ah

13

of risk in his investment. Hence, if the issuer of the sukuk goes bankrupt he would not be able to return the prin-cipal investment of the owners of the sukuk contracts.

Therefore, if the issuer of the sukuk does not promise a return of the prin-cipal investment then it is completely in congruence with the shari’ah. The question remains, what if the return of the principal investment is promised in the form of a condition of the sukuk contract? The answer to this question depends on which of the three above mentioned categories the sukuk falls under:

Promising the return of the principal investment based on the purchase and sale of a loan

In this group, the financial institution which offers the sukuk al-murabaha takes on the position of the repre-sentative of the owners of the sukuk certificates and uses their investments to purchase an asset outright and then sell that asset in the form of a long-term sale on credit (bay al-nasiyah). Then, the purchaser of the asset will pay the amount of the principal coupled with the specified profit to the representative of the investors. One example of this might be that the issuer of the sukuk certificate, as the representative of the owner of the certificate, purchases a housing development and then sells it to a third party for a profit with payment made over an extended period of time.

When this sukuk is sold in the secondary market the principal invest-ment and specified profits transfer ownership as well. In this case, if one accepts the purchase and sale of loans in the secondary market the security of the principal investment and specified profits will become an essential part of the sale on credit. But, if one does not accept this sale, as some prominent Shia scholars and the majority of Sunni scholars do not, then selling the sukuk contracts on the secondary market would be problematic. Therefore, in order for it to remain lawful, some scholars only allow the owner of the certificates, as in the housing develop-

ment example, to retain them until expiry, while others allow for sale on the secondary market for profit or loss.

Promising a return of the principal investment based on the purchase and sale of physical assets

The financial institution of this group, representing the owners of the sukuk certificates, purchase and then lease a physical asset. They collect lease payments and issue them to the owners of the sukuk certificates. At the end of the rental period they either transfer ownership of the leased property to the renter (if the contract was a lease with the condition of ownership) or it is returned and sold in the market (if the contract was a normal lease agreement).

Promising the return of the principal investment based on a partnership

The financial institution which issues the sukuk certificates collects the investments of the owners of the certificates and then uses them in the construction of industrial, agricultural, or commercial projects in a partnership contract with other parties.

The popular Islamic opinion is that one partner cannot stipulate a promise of recovering the principal investment from another partner as a condition of the partnership contract. This obvi-ously leaves open the potential risk of financial loss incurred from issues such as negligence or poor performance. A number of contemporary scholars have attempted to mitigate this risk of loss by permitting the condition of compensation for possible loss by one of the parties in the contract. This usually means that the culpable partner will compensate the investor for any loss on his investment. •

Hamid Waqar is an American Islamic scholar, graduated from Islamic seminaries.

12

9

11

5

9 3

2

7

1Me Time

14

12

9

11

5

9 3

2

7

1Me Time

15

Batool Haydar believes that in our hectic world the best ‘me time’ is that which is spent trying to connect with

the Creator

12

9

11

5

9 3

2

7

1Me Time

16

In many ways, we live a life filled with purpose. We have ambitions, careers, friends, family and commu-nity to occupy us. We often wonder

at how fast a week has passed by or that a weekend is over before it even begins. Our ‘To Do’ lists grow by the day, increasing in number before we’ve managed to cross out existing tasks.

Given the quantity of work we manage to go through and the achievements we gather along the way, one would imagine that we manage to get every-thing we want done and live lives that are fulfilled, if some-what frantic. However, surveys show that a large percentage of people - especially women - are unhappy with the quality of their life despite being otherwise successful.

In secular society, there has been a growing emphasis on finding and respecting ‘me time’ i.e. taking some time off on a regular basis to allocate to yourself. The suggestion is to use this time for hobbies or meditation or even just to sit quietly and not think about the next task or chore that awaits you.

Allison Cohen, a family therapist living in Los Angeles says, “We’re a multi-tasking society. If we’re having a conver-sation with a friend, we’re thinking about the other things we have to get done. Instead, you need to be present in the moment. Whatever you’re doing for you, don’t be thinking about your grocery list or the PowerPoint presenta-tion. There’s a lot of time in our day that we could be enjoying, but we lose it because we’re focused on what we have to do next.”

When we begin to become more aware, then the pockets of quality time we gain do help us to relax and reenergise, but this isn’t always enough. We may be left temporarily rested and ready to

jump back into the whirlwind of activity, but we still carry around a deeper thirst for something to fulfil us in a more permanent way. This is why we need the breaks of ‘me time’ regularly to refuel us, because the process of being drained is a continuous one.

Within Islam, the concept of ‘me time’ takes on a unique form, that if imple-mented properly, can actually sustain our energy longer and give us a more dynamic quality of life. The basic premise of faith is to know and be aware that God is present with us at all times; that every time we seek to be alone and away from the distractions surrounding us, we are actually presented with an opportunity to be more aware of His Presence. The easiest way to start is by using the time we already have allocated daily for communion with God.

For most of us, daily prayers are an obli-gation and the relief that we feel comes after we have performed them, almost as if we have shifted a burden from our shoulders. True relief is to be found in the act of prayer itself as the Prophet Muhammad(s) used to tell Bilal when asking him to recite the adhan (call to prayer): “O Bilal, give us rest with it.” In the Qur’an, God Himself assures us that “…Verily! The hearts find rest in God’s remembrance!” (13:28)

If we realise the magnitude and value of such moments, we will appreciate every chance we get to indulge in them.

Prayer will then become the time we use to turn back to our real roots and to connect with the Creator. The harmony achieved through such a process is something that will resonate with His creation in our daily routines.

Building upon this foundation, we can then find an infinite amount of ‘me time’ as we learn to become more aware of the presence and support of God in every moment of our existence. This awareness in turn will allow us to fully appreciate that there is no independent ‘me’ within us that can be complete or

at peace without Him.

Although it may sound compli-cated, finding time to be with yourself and God only requires determination and whatever time you have to spare when-ever you have it. Here are some ways in which to start re-focusing your perspective.

Focus in Five Minutes

If you have only five minutes or so to spare, start by adding anyone or as many as you can of the following to your daily routine.

y Pause for a few seconds before you perform your wudhu (ablution) for prayer and think about the purpose and importance of the meeting ahead of you.

y Try reciting adhan and iqama (the call to prayer) before you begin praying and concentrate on the words and how they are meant to prepare you for the main prayer.

y After and between prayers, take time to recite some tasbih or dhikr (invoca-tion) with understanding and make a regular habit of this.

y Take time from your schedule to pause, breathe deeply and slowly and simply remember that God is present with you and simply a thought away.

y Save some du’a (supplication) or recitations on your mp3 player or iPod and take a few minutes to listen to them when things get especially busy.

“Certainly We have created man and We know to what his soul tempts him, and We are nearer to

him than his jugular vein.” (Qur’an 50:16)

[...] remember that anything you do is aimed at spending quality time with your own self and nurturing the essential

relationship your soul has with God.

12

9

11

5

9 3

2

7

1Me Time

17

Thrive in Thirty Minutes

When you have more time at hand, try and allocate half an hour to some of the following activities:

y Make a list of books on Islamic topics of interest or on areas of religion that you feel you need to learn more about and then start reading them, one chapter at a time.

y If you have a park nearby, go for a brisk walk. The fresh air will clear your head and as you walk, if you observe the people around you, you will begin to understand many things about human behaviour. Sometimes, we forget to appreciate how much better we have it than so many others.

Soul-search in sixty minutes

On weekends or days off, try to socialise:

y Pick a speaker you like and listen to their talks. Take notes, listen again and if you can, join - or create - a study circle where you can discuss what you have heard.

y Find a class online or at a community centre that you can join. It could be Islamic-oriented or more hobby-based, but remember to find a connection to God through it regardless.

y Volunteer. Sometimes the best place to find the Creator is amongst His Creation. Meet people, help them, be a little selfless and in the process seek to understand and connect with the Love and Mercy of God.

y Spend time reciting the Qur’an slowly and calmly. We often neglect reciting the book that is the essence and foundation of our faith. Just reciting it in Arabic will soothe your soul, and when you add the element of under-standing, you will discover new depths every time you open it.

Through all of this, remember that anything you do is aimed at spending quality time with your own self and nurturing the essential relationship your soul has with God. Don’t allow these precious efforts to become part of another routine or chore. Imam Ali(a)

says: “…be lenient to (your soul), and do not force it. Engage it (in worship-ping) when it is free…”

Based on this, try either the suggested activities or different ones and if at first one doesn’t work for you, simply shift to another until you slowly develop the inclination towards them. The aim is to discover things that you will lean towards and look forward to eagerly so that it truly becomes about finding the best in yourself, God-Willing! •

18

For subscriptions by post, send a cheque payable to the Islamic Centre of EnglandWrite ‘islam today magazine’ on the back.

Please note that the above fees are for the UK only and include postage.For subscriptions outside the UK please write to: subscriptions@islam-today.net

Subscribe online:http://www/islam-today.net/subscribe.asp

or at

DIGITAL EDITION

6 months £10.00

12 months £18.00

PAPER EDITION

6 months £25.00

12 months £48.00

19

20

Masterpiece ‘30 Days of Running in the Space’- Ahmed Basiony 1978-2011

“O Father, O Mother, O Youth, O Stu-dent, O Citizen, O senior. You know this is the last chance for our dignity, the last chance to change the regime that has lasted the past 30 years. Go down to the streets and revolt, bring your food, your clothes, your water, masks and tissues and a vinegar bot-tle. And believe me, there is but one small step left. They want war, we want peace, and I will practice proper restraint until the end, to regain my country’s dignity.”

Ahmed Basiony’s final Facebook status 26 January 2011

Ahmed Basiony was born in 1978 in Cairo. He was an artist and activist.

His work played a crucial role in fusing the message of art and revolution. Basiony is considered one of the most important figures in contemporary Egyptian art. Known initially for his large-scale expressionistic paintings, his art was varied, beginning with more traditional artistic interpretation, and developing along unconventional lines.

He won first prize in painting in the 2001 Salon of Youth for his earlier, more classical work. But his develop-ment as an artist was intense and often radical, with his later work being more experimental. Initially involving new media and multimedia installations, Basionys work continued to evolve toward digital sound and performance art. His development and learning were often supervised by the artist Dr. Shady El Noshokaty, who would later curate Basiony’s final work.

In ‘30 Days of Running in the Space (2010)’, Basiony put on a solo perfor-mance for one hour per day for thirty days. This entailed wearing a plastic suit that covered his entire body and running on the spot. Digital sensors were used to calculate the amount of sweat he produced in relation to the number of steps he took. The data, displayed on a large screen, reflected the physiological changes of his body in motion: the energy being transferred, calories being consumed, and the waste emitted through sweat.

Through the use of a graphic grid and geometrical coloured shapes, Basiony conveyed how energy is transformed. He attempted to show how we as humans are being consumed by time, and also

provoke reflection on the notion that vain actions lead to nothing, and how, often by just living or existing, we are running but not going anywhere. This led me to consider how pivotal inten-tion is in relation to action, and how necessary it is to incorporate progres-sive movement into one’s life. Our lives should be a dynamic movement that enables us to be truly alive and make inroads into self-discovery as opposed to just mounting the hamster wheel for the umpteenth time in order to satisfy our basic needs. By running in one place and getting nowhere, Basiony is asking us to question our place in the world. Where are we going? Why are we here?

Through this piece of performance art, Basiony was able to raise ideas about being and responsibility and awaken them in the public consciousness. But

as history now documents, Basiony was shot and killed by police on 28 January 2011 during the first week of the Egyp-tian uprising. What makes his work a masterpiece for me is how his message continued posthumously.

Basiony died protesting against the regime and simultaneously filming the peaceful crowds that had gathered in Tahrir Square. He captured images of violent responses by the police and compiled them against footage of hundreds of protesters praying their salat [compulsory prayer] together in the square.

Basiony’s friend Shady El Noshokat, having accessed Basiony’s computer after his death, noticed that there were images of the uprising juxtaposed

ARTS Art Editor Moriam Grillo

21

against Basiony’s 2010 performance. El Noshokat immediately recognised what Basiony’s intentions would have been, had he lived to express them.

The unedited partnering of images from ‘30 Days of Running in the Space (2010)’ and protest footage of Basiony’s experi-ence in Tahrir Square were combined to create a video installation. This instal-lation occupied two series of five large screens which play two twelve-minute films in staggered succession. The images force the viewer to engage with one reality or the other as the screens are placed in such a position that both could not be observed simultaneously.

‘30 Days of Running in the Space’ (2011) is two things: a performance piece in which Basiony explores ideas of consumption alongside footage he captured moments before his demise. But what do these two pieces have in common apart from the artist who conceived them?

I believe that by playing both alongside one another, Basiony is able to further develop his message, which like the fluid situation in Egypt at the time developed rapidly. With his performance installa-tion a year before the uprising, Basiony made a statement about how the action of just one person has the ability to be transformative. Basiony extended this statement to represent the actions of many people, all standing together in one place with the shared intention of transforming a regime that had been in place for thirty years. A masterpiece indeed.

Ahmed Basiony represented Egypt at the Venice Biennale. The exhibition for the Egyptian Pavilion was conceived by Shady El Noshokat and curated by Aida Eltorie.

In the spotlight Nermine Hammam

Nermine Hammam’s work is inspired by the early days of the Egyptian revolu-tion and her encounters with soldiers in Tahrir Square. The image featured is part of a group of photomontages combining photographs of army troops with images of colour-saturated idyllic landscapes. Her works are intricate composites of layered images, which use a distinctive style to combine digital manipulation and painting. Using an array of colours Hammam presents photographs which appear larger than life. Her composition adds to the endeavour, by placing her subjects in ways which suggest compromise.

Hammam said that her series, Uppekha, examines war and the notions of power that reside within it. Her intention is to convey humanness and vulnerability by reclaiming the soldier’s individual identity. “My work is an exploration of the frailty that crouches behind stereo-types of force, masquerading within the military, which seeks to reveal the

vulnerability of youth parading behind the weaponry and masculinity, whilst questioning the reality of power and its construction.”

She is one of many Arab artists whose work has been celebrated because of the uprisings, and the world’s fascination with Arab culture which arose from it. ‘Unfolding’ is a series of stylised vintage Japanese landscapes, juxtaposed with explicit footage of police brutality which occurred after the revolution. In Unfolding, the artist uses the art of camouflage to diffuse violent imagery. By hiding injured behind some foliage, Hammam creates a form of propaganda which nulli-fies the fear factor of authority. She implores the viewer to look closer, and re-examine what they can see in order to realise the full magnitude of what is conveyed. Hammam developed the idea for this series from her own experience of watching a young protester die in Tahrir Square, while, a short distance away, city life continued oblivious to the tragedy.

Hammam lives and works in Cairo.

22

PhotographyKhalil Nemmaoui, Morocco

Khalil Nemmaoui was born in Morocco in 1967. His first photographic images were published in 1993, and his first exhibition followed in 1997. A series of his photographs were nominated for the Prix Pictet 2010 and won the prize of The Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie at the 2011 Rencontres de Bamako.

The moment I laid eyes on this photo-graph, I was completely enthralled by its simplicity and splendour.

Khalil Nemmaoui has a well-established career in photography and the compo-sition of these images does much to express his visual prowess.

Having worked as a photojournalist since the early nineties, Nemmaoui first focused on portraiture, after taking up photography as an art form, before

returning to landscape.

Nemmaoui has a keen eye for detail and uses his vision to weave interesting stories out of ordinary things.

La maison de l’arbre comprises of a series of photographs which attempt to rework depictions of landscape. By presenting a man-made structure as integral to nature, Nemmaoui succeeds in preserving classical notions of

terrestrial art. He introduces a new way of perceiving the world through our ever-changing landscapes. Nemmaoui is fascinated by space and form. He invites us to involve ourselves in that same fascination, to look at things in a playful way, to change our perception by choosing carefully where he aims his camera.

Nemmaoui has managed to combine two diverse structures into one form.

What I like most about this photograph, apart from the fact that one’s eye is directed both vertically and horizontally, is the way the branches reaching toward the heavens are set against a glowing sky. It is as though a halo surrounds the tree in a way that leaves ordinarily would, reinforcing a whimsical notion that is reflected in the name of the series.

Khalil Nemmaoui lives and works in Casablanca and Paris.

The Place to BEThe Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar

Hajj: The Journey Through Art

Through January 2014

This exhibition, which is a collabora-tion with the British Museum, allows visitors to explore the Hajj pilgrimage. Incorporated within it is an outdoor photography display featuring the work of five international photographers.

It is also an opportunity to see a variety of artwork which has never before been on public display.

23

HeritageTurquoise Mountain Arts

Turquoise Mountain Arts is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation specialising in urban regeneration, business development, and education in traditional arts and architecture. It provides jobs, skills, and a renewed sense of national pride to Afghan women and men.

It was established in 2006 under the patronage of HRH The Prince of Wales and the President of Afghanistan, to revive traditional Afghan arts, crafts and architecture. The organisation founded an Institute of Traditional Afghan Arts and Architecture with four craft schools in calligraphy, miniature painting, woodwork, jewellery, and ceramics.

Ferozkoh [which translates as Turquoise Mountain] is an exhibition at Leighton House London which presents a selec-tion of works created specifically for the exhibition by the students and teachers of Turquoise Mountain’s Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture in Kabul. Each item was inspired by an historical object in the Museum of Islamic Arts’ permanent collection.

The theme of the Ferozkoh exhibition is the preservation of Islamic art in the modern world, and the role of educa-tion in its transmission and translation.

The exhibition showcases four of the great empires of Afghanistan and their material culture. The Ghaznavids, Timurids, Mughals and Safavids. In Ferozkoh, you will see objects of antiq-uity from the MIA collection, twinned with modern objects created by the students and teachers at Turquoise Mountain in Afghanistan.

These works demonstrate how Afghan artisans have renewed their traditions through effort, wit, skill and imagina-tion. It reflects a deep sense of Afghan pride.

AddendumModerate Enlightenment, 2007- Gouache on wasli

Imran Qureshi (born 1972).

This miniature form of painting grew out of manuscript illumination and has a strong narrative quality to it. For Qureshi, there is an exquisite tension between the modernity of his sitters and the strict parameters of the ancient practice itself.

A selection of Imran Qureshi’s minia-ture work is on exhibition at Gallery 916 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Roof Garden Commission: Imran Qureshi’s Miniature Paintings

Through February 2, 2014. •

Moriam Grillo is an interna-tional artist. She holds Bach-elor degrees in Photography, Film and Ceramics. She is also a freelance broadcaster, photographer and writer.

24

25

Recently reopened after substantial refurbishment in 2010, Leighton House is one of London’s best-kept secrets.

Nestled in a wing of Holland Park, the house is surrounded by its own oasis of

greenery. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about the exterior, and after a walk through the park’s exotic menag-erie of peacocks, Leighton’s garden in this season amounts to little more than a large lawn. Enter the house and

after passing through the ticket and merchandise area (no glorified museum shop, just some tastefully arranged objects, postcards and books for sale) you arrive in the staircase hall. Here a stuffed peacock perches near a superb

Arab Hall - Leighton House

Leighton House Museum

Where east meets west

Cleo Cantone visits the former studio house of Lord Leighton. An Eastern-flavoured dwelling with Victorian eclecticism

26

wooden cabinet inlaid with mother of pearl and the walls are lined with a mixture of Victorian green glazed tiles and Turkish Iznik-style tiles: the perfect eclectic collection of a well-travelled Victorian gentleman.

Only Frederic Leighton was not just a traveller but a painter, sculptor and collector. Not only did he make a number of purchases on his travels, mostly to the Middle East, but what he could not obtain he would sketch and commission a trusted craftsman back in England to reproduce. Although associated with the Pre-Raphaelite school, Leighton’s increasingly frequent trips to North Africa and the Middle East brought a distinctively ‘Orientalist’ flavour to his paintings.

Not surprisingly, therefore, he instructed his architect, George Aitchison to include an Arab Hall which was added to the ground floor of his Kens-ington house between 1877 and 1879. There is nothing more incongruous than a traditional Arab courtyard complete with functioning fountain in the midst of an equally traditional British house, yet from a Muslim perspective, nothing could seem more natural. Then as you hear the comments of fellow visitors that the sound of the trickling fountain would drive them mad, it slowly sinks in that you are not somewhere in the Middle East but right in the heart of

London. Indeed, when you zoom in to the festive array of Islamic decoration, you realise that it is a pot-pourri of different epochs, styles, countries and traditions.

The layout of the hall is reminiscent of courtyards in Syria and Egypt with even the odd echo of Palermo’s Ziza (see Cantone “Sicily: Glory of the Ocean”, Islam Today, issue 11, September 2013: 60-65). Consisting of four pointed arch ivans - the one facing the entrance is windowless, the other two flanking arches have mashrabiyya covered open-ings while the arch facing the entrance features a niche - one could go as far as to say it is like a mihrab as it is the main focus of the hall. It contains tiles of miniature Persian figures dating from the 17th century known as kubachi.

The central dome is supported by four corner squinches simply painted in black and white bands reproducing the ablaq effect of alternating dark and light shades of marble typically used in Mamluk and later Ottoman

architecture. The dome’s gilded decora-tion which was lost in the 1940s due to damp has been restored complete with delicate Ottoman-style stencilled floral motifs.

Surrounding the drum are glass-stained windows allowing a subdued light to penetrate the hall. A brass ‘gazolier’ hangs from the dome: it is formed by a circular band from which sprout elec-tric bulbs which replaced the original gas lights in the 1890s. The design of the lamp was based on Leighton’s

own sketches of mosque lamps and executed by the architect of the house.

The walls of the hall are covered in Syrian and Turkish tiles displaying a variety of styles: from the floral Iznik type to the calligraphic band that underlies the second floor mashrabiyya. Inscribed

on the 42 calligraphic panels is a verse from the Qur’an’s first six ayahs of surah Ar-Rahman.

Virtually inconspicuous are the tiles produced by another famous Victorian ‘Orientalist’, William de Morgan, to replace the missing 17th century tiles collected by Leighton in the old city of Damascus from buildings that were allegedly being demolished when he visited the city in 1873.

Leighton employed a number of contacts, including the then British consul in Damascus, to procure items for his private collection of ‘oriental’ art.

The 19th century saw something of a boom for European collectors exporting vast quantities of Islamic artefacts back to their homelands where they would either remain in their private collections, sold off to the Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert) or exhibited at the Great Exhibitions held in European capitals to showcase

The walls of the hall are covered in Syrian and Turkish tiles displaying a variety of styles: from the floral Iznik type to the calligraphic band that underlies the second floor mashrabiyya. Inscribed on the 42 calligraphic panels is a verse from the Qur’an’s first six ayahs of surah Ar-Rahman.

Frederic Leighton (1830-1896)

27

the ‘inferior’ qualities of their colonial subjects.

With no expense spared for his Arab Hall, Leighton had the mosaics made from glass tesserae in Venice and shipped back to London. Their motifs feature peacocks, female-headed beasts similar to Al-Buraq, dragons, falcons and birds, snakes as well as signs from the Zodiac and curly vines.

In the drawing room hangs a collection of Spanish lusterware plates, called Hispano-Moresque due to their dual Christian-Spanish and Islamic heritage. These plates, reflecting the taste of the age for the ‘Moors’ of Spain together with the ‘Persians’, were credited for having introduced to Europe the type of pottery known in Italian as majolica. In the adjacent dining room, with its reproduced Victorian red wall paper, a collection of Turkish Iznik plates and other vessels adorns the walls and mantelpiece. This type of distinctive pottery stands out because of the appearance of the colour red.

Thought to have been developed on the island of Rhodes by Persian potters, this particular shade became the distin-guishing characteristic of Iznik ware (used in modern day Turkey).

The visitor is then led back to the stair-

case to gain access to the second floor and the silk room where Leighton’s own paintings hang next to those of both his contemporaries and famous Renais-sance artists like Rossellino, a pupil of Donatello’s, and Tintoretto. Before entering the proprietor’s studio, there is a low couch in the window bay screened by the mashrabiyya that overhangs the Arab Hall below. The oriental theme slightly dilutes in the studio but among the artist’s small figurative sculptures that he used as models for his paint-ings, there are also a couple of portraits of ‘oriental’ subjects he presumably painted on his travels: a Persian pedlar and a turbaned man.

At the end of this vast room, on one side of which is a raised platform with a grand piano, is a wooden gallery acces-sible by means of a concealed staircase. Through here is a space dedicated to temporary exhibitions. Currently on show is “Ferozkoh: Tradition and Conti-nuity in Afghan Art - A conversation between the Present and the Past”. This exhibition is the product of a collabora-tion between the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in Qatar and the Turquoise

Mountain Institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture in Kabul. Artists from the latter institute were invited by MIA to study the objects of Islamic art in their collection and draw inspiration from them to produce new works. It is a unique opportunity to view the original artefact next to the new one. A short film records the Afghan artists’ thoughts and impressions about this collabora-tion and the skills they learned in the process. Some of the woodwork pieces are scattered throughout the museum: a bookcase in the drawing room, pendant

Jali balls in the Arab Hall and a carved Nuristani figure in the entrance by the staircase. In the coming winter months there will be a series of talks, concerts, readings and film screenings to accom-pany the exhibition.

Leighton’s legacy lives on in his house turned museum. What is interesting is that today the collectors are not only westerners - the pieces on show from Qatar eloquently illustrate this gentle shift eastwards, a sign of a kind of re-appropriation of a glorious past by

the Qatari elite. Leighton and his fellow Victorian collectors were perhaps unduly obsessed with an idealised Islamic past so the work carried out by the young Afghan artists today is vital not only to preserve the traditions of craftsmanship of one part of the Islamic world, but to give them new meaning, re-invent them even, and keep them alive in today’s rapidly changing world. •

Dr Cleo Cantone holds a PhD from the University of London. Her book “Making and Remaking Mosques in Senegal”, based on her doctoral research, has recently been published by Brill.

[..] when you zoom in to the festive array of Islamic decoration, you realise that it is a pot-pourri of different epochs, styles,

countries and traditions.

28

Lila Abu-Lughod begins her book by recalling Time magazine’s cover of August 2010, showing a young Afghan

woman whose nose had been cut off as a punishment by her Taliban husband and his family. Underneath the picture ran the headline: “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan?”– a message that implied women would be the first victims in the event that western forces withdrew from Afghanistan.

Abu-Lughod, who is an anthropologist, finds it difficult to reconcile her own first-hand knowledge about Muslim women with the view portrayed by the American media and believed by the majority that ‘Muslim women do not have rights’. With this book she aims to debunk that myth through recounting the experiences of Muslim women she knows, telling their stories, describing their lives, their aspirations and their struggles to create better lives. This is an attempt to add some nuance to the stereotype of Muslim women as a homog-

enous, undifferentiated block through demonstrating the complexities of their characters, their societies and their lives. Western representation of Muslim women, as Abu-Lughod points out, has a long history, going back to the first centuries of Islam, extending to the Middle Ages, through colonial times and beyond. She argues however that after the attacks of September 11, 2001 the image of oppressed Muslim women received a boost and became linked to a renewed sense of mission to rescue them. To support the so-called war on

Book review

Saving Muslim Women?

Are Muslim women really oppressed? Why is the West so keen to rescue them? Mohsen Biparva reviews Lila Abu-Lughod’s new book, Do Muslim Women Need Saving?

‘Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes.’ Laura Bush, 2001

29

terror and to give it moral justification, all sort of representations of Muslim women’s plight proliferated in the media.

The first issue that the author chooses to tackle is the veil, or rather the politics of the veil. With its different names and styles, the veil has become the most notable symbol of the oppression of Muslim women. It has become a popular belief in recent years that when women cover themselves, it must always be the result of coercion by, or capitulation to male pressure. To explain that veiling does not necessarily stand for lack of independent agency, Abu-Lughod has to explain the cultural meaning and the function of the veil in Muslim societies. She refers to western liberal commentators’ bafflement that Afghan

women did not throw off their burqas after the Taliban were removed in 2001, asking why this should be surprising. ‘Did we expect that once “free” from the extremist Taliban these women would go “back” to belly shirts and blue jeans or dust off their Chanel suits?’

In explaining often obvious things, she stresses the fact that the burqa was not invented by the Taliban. It was the local form of covering among the Pashtun and several other Afghan ethnic groups. Similar to many other forms of coverings, the burqa marks the symbolic separation of male and female domains, associating women with family and home rather than the public sphere. Referring to Hanna Papanek, an anthropologist who worked in Pakistan in the 1970s, she calls the burqa a ‘port-

able seclusion’ or in a more familiar expression a ‘mobile home’.

In this manner, the burqa is the exten-sion of home and family space that marks the responsibility and modesty of its wearer, and assures her protec-tion from the harassment of strangers in the public sphere. This is done by symbolically signalling to all that they are still in the sanctuary of their private space and remain under the protection of the family. It also has significance in showing someone’s social status - the blue burqa, for example, is usually worn by women from respectable and strong families. She shows that there are many different types of coverings in Islamic societies, all with their particular cultural meanings and social connota-tions. One of these is the modest

30

31

Islamic dress that has been adopted by Muslim women since the mid-1970s that apart from projecting modesty and piety can be seen as a sign of educated urban sophistication, or in her opinion, a sort of modernity. She argues that in some countries like Iran, women play with colour, tightness, or a wisp of hair to display political and class resistance.

Abu-Lughod challenges arguments made by some rescue-Muslim-women circles in the US who compare the struggle for gender equality with the anti-slavery movement. She believes for example that in the anti-slavery movement, activists would endeavour to change their own society, to convince their own governments to stop the trade in slaves, whereas in these gender-equality campaigns, it is all about persuading men in “other” places to end their violence against “their” women. By this, she believes, activists of this kind ignore or trivialise inequalities and violence against women in their own societies to make legitimate concern about sexual violence in places like Afghanistan. For example, statistics show that US maternal mortality rate is much higher than Italy’s, or that US prisons house a relatively higher proportion of women convicted of killing their abusive lovers or husbands.

The advocates of rescuing Muslim women according to Abu-Lughod, share several beliefs, foremost of which is a mythical place she calls “IslamLand”. IslamLand is a place where things are most wrong, most notably for Muslim women, and they are wrong because of the religion of Islam. This provides them with a sense of moral superiority enabling them to identify with the moral “we” who knows what is wrong and what is right. Abu-Lughod explains that while accusing Islam of being misogynistic is easy, it is almost impossible to ask whether Christianity or Judaism are misogynistic too.

She also takes issue with the failure to recognise the sheer diversity of Muslims. There is no generalised picture. A “Muslim woman” can be an old woman in Somalia, a poor Bangladeshi peasant, a Palestinian filmmaker, a Lebanese writer or the Oxford-trained former prime minister of Pakistan. They are all Muslim women.

Abu-Lughod goes on to describe a new type of feminism emerging in Islamic societies that is different from the popular genre of Muslim women’s memoires represented by writers such as Ayan Hirsi Ali. This new type of feminist quotes frequently from the Qur’an; she is familiar with Islamic law and legal tradition, knows her rights according to Islamic law, invokes examples from early Muslim history and writes sophisticated articles. Abu-Lughod tells the story of these real women and tries to encourage her western readers to listen to their voices.

One benefit of listening, she argues, is to understand that matters are not that simple. It may also help us realise that we are not disconnected from those realities that are shaped by global politics, international capital and modern state institutions. Abu-Lughod explains all this through the stories of her real-life heroines from rural Egypt where she has spent years as an anthro-pologist. Through their stories she shows that despite western popular western stereotypes Muslim women are more than just anonymous oppressed women calling out to the West to come and rescue them. •

Lila Abu-Lughod is the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science at Columbia Uni-versity, where she teaches anthropology and women’s studies.

Do Muslim Women Need saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod, Harvard University Press, 2013, £29.95

32

33

Nelson Mandela has left this world, a world which during his years as a freedom fighter gave him grief and suffering

but also later bestowed upon him international recognition and fame as peacemaker and nation builder.

Mandela’s worldwide appeal cannot be understated. Masses around the world who despaired of their own opportunist politicians grew fond of this icon of integrity and resistance. To them, he was a breath of fresh air, an aberration in an otherwise long litany of political scandals, sleaze and corruption. That is why one satirical magazine suggested that Mandela was actually ‘the first politician who was being missed’ after his death.

A Life Devoted to Struggle

Mandela could have been an African tribal chief, had he followed on the footsteps of his father. Instead Madiba, as he was affectionately known, decided to become a lawyer to help his people escape the inhumane and barbaric laws imposed by South Africa’s white settlers.

Early in his youth Mandela joined the African National Congress and emerged as one of its leading figures. He was hoping to continue on the path of non-violent resistance to the govern-ment’s racist policies, but the ruthless suppression of peaceful demonstrators forced him to engage in a campaign of subversion against the regime.

Mandela was eventually arrested for his opposition to apartheid and put on trial on charges of treason. During his trial he gave a six-hour speech which ended with his famous statement that he was ready to die for the creation of a society in which the equality of all races could be ensured.

Mandela was sentenced to life with hard labour, to be served on the dreaded Robben Island. For 13 years, he worked in the island’s quarry. Even there he continued the resistance, encouraging others to work as slowly as possible. One of his warders later said: ‘I watched him take 10 minutes to lift his pick over his head.’

On the mainland, the struggle against

Mandela’s legacy must live on Remembrance ceremonies for Mandela

have attracted a plethora of world leaders to South Africa. Reza Murshid questions if their presence does justice to the memory of Mandela

34

apartheid continued unabated despite the increasing brutality of the police. The South African youth became increasingly radicalised. As the new young firebrands arrived at Robben Island, they also came under Mandela’s influence. He quickly emerged as the person who would lead the freedom struggle.

An international campaign began in the 1980’s to secure Mandela’s release. The Pretoria regime reacted by offering him freedom from incarceration on condition that he would discontinue his political activity. Mandela rejected the offer. His message to his people was read at a rally by his daughter Zindzi: ‘Your freedom and mine cannot be separate.’ Despairing, FW de Klerk, the new South African president, decided to release him unconditionally.

After his release, the regime hoped that Mandela would become a recluse. But he became more and more the centre of domestic and inter-national attention. In 1993 Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize along with FW De Klerk. It was the first time that a peace prize had been shared by a former prisoner and his erstwhile jailer.

In 1994 Mandela was elected as the country’s president. Some 23 million people voted the first election in the nation’s history in which blacks were given the chance to vote.

After his first term in office Mandela kept his promise to step down. He turned his attention to causes that were close to his heart; children and the fight against AIDS. He linked his celebrity status to charity to ensure some good would come out of the Mandela brand.

Nation Builder

When Mandela walked free from prison, he was a visionary without any bitterness. It was the lack of acrimony on his part that elevated him from revolutionary to nation builder. This made him stand out against most other

revolutionaries of the twentieth century who initiated civil wars in their own countries and played havoc with the unity, prosperity and dignity of their nations after they came to power.

Mandela was able to put past conflicts and tensions behind him and make South Africa the economic powerhouse that it is today. White supremacists would have you believe that South Africa was doing well before Mandela came to power. Nothing is further from the truth. The country was on a down-ward slope, its economic growth under serious strain from the anti-apartheid divestiture movement that encouraged foreign companies to pull out.

Mandela knew how to create a sense of

community and nationhood between different ethnic and religious groups in the new Rainbow Nation. In the early years of his presidency, he attended the final of the Rugby World Cup to cheer on the national team, an all-white unit playing a white game which many considered the last preserve of apart-heid.

An African Leader with a Legacy

Mandela was the first leader from the so-called Dark Continent who was taken seriously by former colonial powers. Some African leaders prior to him had not been given the chance to project themselves onto the world stage as robustly as Mandela. The colonial powers had been successful in suppressing the good qualities of African leaders by nipping them in

the bud: Patrice Lumumba of Congo was sacrificed at the altar of Belgian colonialism and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana died under suspicious circum-stances - some have suggested he was poisoned by the CIA. Still other African leaders were architects of their own ignominy. With the exception of the late Julius Nyerereh of Tanzania, the majority of those who stayed alive after the liberation struggle only managed to tarnish their own image by building their own political and financial dynas-ties through corruption and repressing the very people they claimed to have liberated.

By contrast Mandela’s qualities of selflessness, humility, loyalty and peace-

fulness made him truly lovable. After his death, his comrades on Robben Island recounted for the world media how he would take care of each detained comrade during the harsh days of incarceration. Fame did not change Mandela. When he was released from prison, he showed humility by reminding his supporters that they should not put him on a pedestal saying: ‘I stand before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant.’

Mandela’s peacefulness moti-vated him to despise the sin and not the sinner. Instead of adopting an-eye-for-an-eye approach towards the Afrikaners who had committed atrocities against the blacks, under his leadership the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to allow apartheid’s victims to come face to face with their oppres-sors and draw a line under the past. Mandela’s legacy emphasised reconcili-ation rather than revenge.

Co-opting the Internationalist Legacy

Absent from most obituaries in the western media was Mandela’s strong internationalist loyalty to the revolu-tionaries who supported him in the fight against apartheid.

In March 1998, Mandela reminded then

Absent from most obituaries in the western media was Mandela’s

strong internationalist loyalty to the revolutionaries who supported him in

the fight against apartheid.

35

US president Bill Clinton at a press conference that despite U.S. pressures, he would refuse to abandon his friend-ship with Cuba, Libya and Iran because the revolutionaries from these countries ‘helped us during our darkest hours.’

Also missing was his passionate support for Palestinians. ‘We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians’, Mandela had once stated. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his condolences for the passing of Mandela, quite a few pundits wondered whether he was being sincere. After all, the apartheid regime had been Zionist Israel’s closest ally.

As Barack Obama and other former U.S. presidents took part in Mandela’s funeral ceremony they could not have forgotten that the great man had been highly critical of their nation’s misad-ventures around the globe. Mandela once said of the U.S: ‘If there is a country that has committed unspeak-able atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings’.

When George W Bush decided to attack Iraq in 2003, Mandela not only called him a ‘coward’ but also accused Bush of hankering after Iraqi oil saying: ‘It’s a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing. All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. There is no doubt that the U.S. is behaving badly. Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq’s oil.’

Like many great individuals, Madiba’s legacy will continue to face challenges from those who attempt to co-opt it. Throughout history, the legacies of such men have been distorted by their enemies so that they do not pose a threat to the status quo. Now Madiba has gone it is left to us to carry on the struggle that he so charismatically embodied.. •

Nelson Mandela’s legacy as South Africa’s first black president and anti-apartheid icon includes a fearless resolve and a clear anti-imperialist stance. During his lifetime he criticised the excesses of American power, most notably the Iraq invasion, and he was a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause.

In 1999 he met the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution, Sayyid Ali Khamenei in Tehran. After the historic meeting he said that Sayyid Ali Khame-nei’s predecessor, Imam Khomeini, was not only a leader of Iran but was consid-ered a leader of the whole freedom movement across the globe.

The African leader also expressed pride at having the opportunity to pay his respects to the late Imam Khomeini saying that the great Imam had confronted the conspiracies and plots of colonial powers in the contemporary era. He laid a wreath on the grave of Ayatollah Khomeini, and warmly greeted his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, embracing him and referring to him as “my leader”.

Later, Ayatollah Khamenei gave local reporters an insight into his meeting with Mandela. He said: “ I told [Mandela], ‘Our experience in Iran can be applicable to your country; this experience consists of ordinary people……women and men [who] came out onto the streets, and they only brought themselves, no fists no arms, no hand grenades, no safe houses. They disarmed the regime and the regime realised that it could no longer remain [in power].’ He [Mandela] nodded his head [in agreement].”

Ayatollah Khamenei continued “….A couple of months later, we read in newspapers of massive popular protests in South Africa. I realised that the seed had grown exactly as it had in Iran. The streets of the major cities of South Africa were filled with black people

and some white people marching with them saying they were also against the apartheid regime.”

In the meeting Mandela also reiter-ated his thanks for the help that the Islamic Republic of Iran had given to the anti-apartheid movement. “We are indebted to the Islamic Revolution,” he had said. After its victory in 1979 the Islamic Republic of Iran cut diplomatic ties with the apartheid South African government that had been in place since the early 1950s during Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty.

Reza Murshid is a political analyst and freelance writer.

Mandela’s visit to Iran

36

Safeguarding one’s faith, being good ambassadors for Islam and working for the betterment of wider society are critical features in the Islamic perspective on migration says Ali Jawad

Migration in the name of Faith

Feature

37

Migration has a special place in the historiography of the world’s great religions. The early histories of Judaism,

Christianity and Islam are replete with tales of persecution against the early believers. Oppressive powers spared no means to exact their deadly vengeance on those who subscribed to the ‘new faith’ in order to pre-emptively deter others, and to ultimately quash the nascent religion.

In the face of such torment, devout followers were left with little option but to hide their faith, face torture and

worse, or to emigrate to distant lands in the hope that they could practise their faith more freely. In the religious context therefore, the concept of migration emerges as a drastic step compelled by circumstance. It is the exercise of a desperate option whereby one chooses to forsake his/her homeland, people and belongings for the sake of some-thing deemed superior, namely one’s faith. It represents the reaffirmation of one’s inherent freedom, dignity and identity within a social context that openly stands against these values.

According to the late scholar Murtadha Mutahhari, the concept of hijrah (migra-tion) signifies ‘leaving one’s home, people and homeland for a new place of abode, with a view to saving one’s faith’. In the view of other scholars, the applicability of this concept is timeless and can have a wider context than

simply saving one’s faith. Perhaps it can be applied to any migrant who leaves his residence for God’s sake.

In numerous verses of the Holy Qur’an, there is mention of hijrah and promise of great reward for those who migrate for the sake of God. Such is the signifi-cance and status of ‘migrants’ in Islam that even though migration is contin-gent upon circumstance, a Muslim is duty-bound to maintain a true and sincere intention to embark on such a duty should circumstances change. Migration thus takes on an ethical dimension denoting a constant state of preparedness motivated by strong belief and faith. Indeed, one of the definitions of migration put forward by the scholars of Islamic ethics and spirituality entails abandoning one’s sins, or migrating from one’s lower carnal and animalistic self to the higher human self.

In addition to this classical definition of migration under circumstances of duress, Islam also encourages its followers to explore the signs of God in the universe. Numerous verses of the Qur’an invite readers to reflect and ponder over the wonders of nature such as the alternation of night and day, the ocean tides, the stars and planetary objects in the heavens and so on. In addition, the Qur’an also makes mention of past nations and historic civilisations in several verses, and invites readers to ‘travel across the Earth’ in order to learn and take heed from the lessons of history. One of the beautiful pieces of advice is by Ali Ibn Abi-Talib(a) to his son Al-Hasan(a), in which he counsels:

“My dear son! Though the span of my life is not as that of some other people who have passed away before me, yet

I took great care to study their lives; assiduously I went through their activi-ties, I contemplated over their delibera-tions and deeds, I studied their remains, relics and ruins. I pondered over their lives so deeply that I felt as if I have lived and worked with them from early ages of history down to our times, and I know what did them good and what brought harm to them.”

This approach, which is distinctly influ-enced by the teachings of the Qur’an, encourages human beings to be inquisi-tive and indeed scientific. Arguably one of the more renowned Prophetic sayings also refers to this attribute. The Final Messenger is famously known to have said: ‘Go in search of knowledge even if you have to journey to China’.

The inclusive paradigm by which Islam views peoples of different cultures and nations further encouraged Muslims to

The inclusive paradigm by which Islam views peoples of different cultures and nations further encouraged Muslims to travel outwards and interact with those

of other cultures and civilisations.

38

travel outwards and interact with other cultures and civilisations. The Holy Qur’an stresses the ethical precept: ‘so that you know one another’, when pointing to the secret of the diversity that exists between human beings. (49:13)

Finally, the concept of da’wah (calling to the way of God) features strongly in the Islamic faith. Islam renders it both an individual and collective obligation to spread its teachings. Muslims are urged to invite others to follow the Godly path through wisdom and good conduct.

All these elements can be viewed as ‘push’ factors for Muslims to embark on migration from a purely religious point of view. Obviously, the traditional socio-economic factors such as war, persecution, natural disasters, economic hardship and the like are examples of situations in which migration from one’s homeland takes on a more urgent and compulsive character.

In the Islamic tradition, there are historically two significant migrations that coincide with the early beginnings of the Prophetic mission. Approxi-mately five years after the Proclamation of the Divine message by the Holy Prophet Muhammad(s), the first wave of Muslim migrants secretly fled to Abyssinia. Renowned companions such as Bilal, the Abyssinian slave, and Ammar ibn Yaser derive some of their iconic status due to their integrity, steadfastness and sacrifices during this period of history.

During the thirteenth year after the Proclamation, the Holy Prophet(s) and the Muslims of Makkah emigrated to Madina, which consequently became the cradle of the Islamic civilisation. According to exegetes, the following verse from the Holy Qur’an was revealed as an instruction to the believers to embark upon this migration:

‘Those who migrate for the sake of God after they have been wronged, We will surely settle them in a good place in the world, and the reward of the Here-

after is surely greater, had they known. Those who are patient and put their trust in their Lord’. (16:41-42)

The above verse sets out the basis for migration according to Islam. Like similar verses that highlight this concept, this verse specifies the criterion of migrating for the sake of God. This condition not only outlines the objective of migration but contains within it the ethical cornerstones and values that should be part and parcel of this process. Due to this association, there is a deep-rooted precept in Islamic jurisprudence referred to as al-ta’arrub ba’d al-hijrah, which broadly refers to ‘losing or weakening of one’s faith after migration’. In several narrations it is

regarded as among the major sins for a Muslim, thus serving as a clear warning about the priorities that one should have when migrating to a foreign land. This precept underscores the invaluable status of faith above other considerations, whilst also stressing the need for Muslims to preserve their Islamic values and identity at all times and in all places.

In modern times, migration has taken on an altogether staggering magnitude on the global stage. According to the United Nations, ‘more people than ever are living abroad’ with a phenomenal 232 million international migrants in 2013; a sizeable increase from 175 million in 2000. Muslims are not an exception to this general trend.

Today, there are close to 2.7million Muslims living in the UK with the

majority being born into second or third generation migrant families. Faceless statistics such as the above admittedly overlook the broad diversity that exists. The human face of migration can only be seen in the unique story, experience and culture of each individual. Like-wise, the Muslim community is far from monolithic, coming from all the four corners of the globe and contributing to the wider diversity of modern day Britain.

Naturally, questions surrounding culture, identity, integration, cohesion and assimilation have arisen. The more sensationalist news stories, principally driven by the political climate and narrative of the last decade, have

expectedly waned with the passage of time. These negative discourses largely contributed to an unsavoury climate and exaggerated the ‘identity-crisis’.

As with all faith denominations that have a multicultural follow-ership, Muslims are confronted with unique challenges relating to how they experience, practise and project their faith in the modern era. These are chal-lenges that emerge as a result of the natural progression of individuals and communities when introduced to alternate

social contexts. From an Islamic perspective however, the foremost obli-gations remain safeguarding one’s faith, becoming good ambassadors for its lofty teachings and principles, and working for the betterment of wider society. The Prophetic example, which best illus-trates the ethics of migration according to Islam, provides an important refer-ence for modern Muslim communities to tackle some of their contemporary challenges in this regard. •

Ali Jawad is a human rights activist and political analyst with a keen interest in international diplomacy.

Muslims are confronted with unique challenges relating to how they

experience, practise and project their faith in the modern era. These are

challenges that emerge as a result of the natural progression of individuals and communities when introduced to

alternate social contexts.

39

40

Education for Sale?Francis Gilbert explains why academies and free schools have led to a bad deal for vulnerable students

41

Education for Sale?

42

For state school teachers like me, Michael Gove’s tenure as Education Secretary from 2010 has been momentous. He

and his team were quick off the mark and pushed through legislation that encouraged many schools to separate from their local authorities and become academies, and for “free schools” to be set up by special interest groups such as parents, faith groups and charities. Since then, approximately half of all secondary schools have become academies with the Department for Education stating that there are now 3,444 academies open in England. Considering that there were only 239 academies set up under Labour this is a massive change. Furthermore, 174 free schools have opened since September 2011. While Gove has changed much else - including changes to the curriculum and teachers’ pay and conditions – it is probably this huge structural change that he will be remembered for.

What exactly are academies and free schools?

While many parents feel quite positive about these types of schools, many of them don’t really understand what they are because it is difficult to explain their unique characteristics without discussing the history of education in England. As Michael Gove is fond of pointing out, it was the Labour government which instituted academies in 2000 as a way of “turning around” failing schools in our inner cities. Using an idea taken from American charter schools, the concept was that if you encouraged not-for-profit organisations and powerful sponsors such as banks to work with highly skilled teachers you could set up more effective schools than existing local authority ones. The whole point of academies was and is that they are independent from the local educa-tion authority (LEA) and the people who run them are not beholden to what was perceived as their “foot-dragging” bureaucracy.

Funded during the boom years of the Noughties, not-for-profit chains such as Harris, the United Learning Trust, Ark and E-Act built schools which enjoyed massive injections of government cash. Many “failing” inner-city schools, were knocked down, re-named, re-staffed and re-built in gleaming new structures. Some schools with dynamic head teachers achieved great results. Most famous of these was possibly Moss-bourne Academy, the school built after the notorious Hackney Downs School was closed down in a very deprived area of London. Its then principal, Michael

Wilshaw, led Mossbourne to achieve fantastic GCSE and A Level results for its pupils, despite the fact that many came from very deprived, challenging backgrounds. Wilshaw went on to be knighted and is now the Chief Inspector at the school inspectorate, Ofsted.

There had always been opposition to the establishment of academies from the left wing of the Labour Party because they bypassed local education authori-ties: they were not funded by them, they have no local authority governors on their governing bodies, and they are not obliged to “buy into” local authority services. They were objected to because they are not “locally” accountable in that they are answerable only to central government, and because if all schools opt to become academies and decide to opt out of LEA services then these services, such as provision for teacher-training, Special Educational Needs (SEN) and English as an Additional Language (EAL) pupils, school meals, buildings maintenance etc would wither and die.

The massive expansion of the acad-emies programme from 2010 has effectively seen these predictions come true: there are very few LEAs left now that have teacher centres to help train teachers, SEN and EAL services are minimal, and many LEA school meals services have shut down.

Is this a big problem? Well, it depends who you are in the system. Schools in wealthier areas and schools that are part of chains like Ark and Harris have benefitted from the changes; cash that used to go to the LEA to provide central services has gone to them, enabling

them to pay their “principals” and CEOs large wages. A new educational establishment has emerged which consists of some very wealthy people, frequently enjoying salaries well over £200,000 a year, far more than the top people in LEAs.

However, if you’re a child from a deprived family with SEN or EAL your opportunities for advancement have been, on

the whole, drastically reduced. LEAs still have a statutory duty to provide services for SEN and EAL students but have no money, while academies and free schools, being independent from LEAs, have a great deal more power to exclude difficult children. The net result of this is that children from deprived backgrounds have seen their achieve-ments plummeting, with the attainment gap between rich and poor students widening considerably. Exhaustive research into this area carried out by the Institute of Public Policy Research found that: “Pupils from deprived areas are about as likely to attend a school rated ‘satisfactory’ or ‘inadequate’ as wealthier pupils are likely to attend a school rated ‘outstanding’.”

Gove set up the free school programme to explicitly address the problem of the attainment gap but has dismally failed to narrow it. Official figures now show that free schools disproportionately serve wealthier children. In other words, the billions pumped into this programme have not found their way

The whole point of academies was and is that they are independent from the local authority and the people who run them are not beholden to what was perceived

as “foot-dragging” bureaucracy.

43

into improving the life chances of poorer children. However, it wasn’t difficult to foresee this because any programme which encourages parents to set up their own schools is bound to attract parents who are already highly educated and wealthier.

As the high-profile failures of various free schools have shown, it is very difficult to set up a school from scratch, particularly in more deprived areas: the Al-Madinah School in Derby, the object of recent very unflattering headlines, appears to have suffered in part because it served pupils from more

deprived backgrounds. As any experi-enced teacher knows, unless you have very highly trained staff – which free schools are not obliged to use – schools in deprived areas can be impossible to run effectively. Educating children, who are not motivated to learn, who don’t have supportive parents, who have SEN and EAL students, is extremely challenging. The academies programme under the Labour government worked, by and large because there was a very tight focus on getting the right kind of staff to work in challenging schools. The free school programme has not been so successful because the Department for Education has not been so focused on the issue of staffing.

This is where another flagship programme of the government, the Pupil Premium, has fallen down as well. This has allocated nearly £2 billion to students who are on Free School Meals (FSM) so that they can have things like extra tuition. It sounds great in prin-ciple and it should work: more money given to poorer children should result

in them achieving more highly. But research shows that so far this money has been misspent by schools because it wasn’t “ring-fenced” for a specific programme like one-to-one reading tuition. As a result, so far the Pupil Premium has failed to achieve better results for poorer children.

The net result of Gove’s reforms is that they have stripped away the rights of children to have a good education. This is particularly the case if they are being educated in an academy or free school. In these schools, children no longer have the right to be taught by

a qualified teacher, to be provided with a broad and balanced curriculum, to be given extra assistance if they have Special Educational Needs or English as an Additional Language, to appeal if they feel they have been unfairly excluded from school and to be given a healthy and balanced diet by the school meals service. Concomitantly, teachers too have seen their conditions of service worsen considerably: they have to pay more into their pension schemes and will receive smaller pensions when they retire, they’ve had their pay rises frozen, and moves are afoot to reduce their holidays and increase the hours they have to teach. •

Francis Gilbert has taught in various state schools for over twenty years and is the author of bestselling ‘I’m A Teacher, Get Me Out Of Here’.

A new educational establishment has emerged which consists of some very wealthy people, frequently enjoying salaries well over £200,000 a year, far

more than the top people in LEAs.

44

An Islamic Perspective on WealthProphets and Profit

45

In a time when Capitalism has given wealth a bad name, does God want us to make money? And how can we turn our

work into worship? asks Alexander Khaleeli

46

Today, it is something of a fashion statement to be disillusioned with Capitalism. Whether it’s the images of

American shoppers punching each other’s lights out over the last wide-screen TV in the Black Friday sales, the commercialisation of all our holidays and festivals, or the fact that we are still feeling the consequences of one of the biggest economic crises the world has ever seen, there’s a lot of good reasons for people to question the status quo. In fact, the whole landscape of Capitalism looks rather bleak: we have “chasms” of inequality, “mountains” of debt and the “long road” to recovery snaking in between. It leaves many of us looking for a change of scenery.

From an Islamic perspective it seems easy to justify a dislike of worldly wealth. There is the oft-quoted saying of the Prophet(s) that ‘This world is a prison for the believer and a paradise for the disbeliever.’ In the Qur’an, we read that ‘the life of this world is nothing but the wares of delusion’ (3:185), its wares are ‘transitory’ (4:94) and it ‘deceives’ people (6:70), whereas the Hereafter is ‘the abiding home’ (30:39). The very word that God and His Prophet(s) use to refer to this world – dunya - literally means ‘lowest’, as if to affirm its worthlessness.

But to conclude that this world is without value, or that owning wealth and property is innately bad, would be a serious misreading. When God says: ‘The life of this world is nothing but diversion and play, but the abode of the Hereafter is indeed Life, had they known!’ (29:64) this merely affirms that this world lacks any value in and of itself. In other words, the dunya lacks intrinsic value when it is disconnected from what came before it and what will come after it.

The Prophet(s) said: ‘Everything in this world is worthless, save that which is used to seek God’s countenance.’ So although this world has no value of its own, it obtains its value insofar as it is

used to prepare for the Hereafter. Think of this life as a journey; the purpose of a journey is to convey you to a destina-tion – a journey with no destination is not a journey, but aimless wandering.

Someone might object, but that means our time in this world should be spent in worship, not doing business! First of all, God Himself asks in the Qur’an ‘Did we not… make the day for liveli-hood?’ (78:6-11); meaning He considers earning a livelihood a blessing for which we should give thanks. Secondly, this objection presumes a very narrow definition of what worship is; far from seeing earning a living as something bad, the Prophets have not only worked to earn a living - even doing demanding physical labour, such as farming – but

have encouraged others to do likewise as an act of worship. The Prophet’s companions asked him about a man who spends all his day in worship and does no work, he asked: ‘Who supports him?’ They said: ‘His brother.’ The Prophet told them: ‘His brother is a better worshipper than him.’ So not only is it good and proper for us to seek a livelihood, but seeking a livelihood is itself a form of worship by which we can seek nearness to God. So how can we make sure that when we go to work, our efforts are being counted as worship?

First and foremost, we must make sure we have the right intention (niyya), as it is the intention behind any action that determines its value in the eyes of God. In a lengthy tradition, the Prophet says that someone working to support himself, his children or his parents, is

working for the sake of God, whereas someone who works purely for the sake of accumulation is working in the path of Satan. Therefore we need to make sure that we are pursuing worldly wealth for more than the wealth itself; whether it is supporting those who depend upon us, helping the needy or using it for the sake of God, all of these are intentions that will transform our work into worship. This is because we are connecting our work in this worldly life to our ultimate purpose and our ultimate destination. So unlike the extremes of Capitalism, which is entirely worldly, Islam – the Middle Path – sees this world in continuum with that which comes before and after it, and teaches us to see our actions in

this world joined to their consequences in the next.

Second, we must look to the source of our wealth and ensure that we earn our money in a way that God has allowed; we cannot worship God while disobeying him! The Prophet said: ‘No soul shall die until it has received its full provision, so be wary of God and seek your provi-sion in a beautiful manner. And do not let any delay

in it motivate you to seek anything through disobeying God, for that which is with Him cannot be obtained through disobedience.’

This principle is especially important today when we look at investing our savings; do we really think that putting our money in un-ethical companies is going to please God and earn His bless-ings in this world and the Hereafter?

Third, we must have the right attitude towards our wealth, meaning we must recognise that - like everything in this world - our wealth and property are a test for us. In the Qur’an (8:28) God mentions ‘a great reward’ after mentioning a test because God tests us in order to reward us. In other words, our wealth and property should be merely a means to an end - God’s eternal reward. It is when we forget this and start to see

[…] the whole landscape of Capitalism looks rather bleak: we have “chasms” of inequality, “mountains” of debt and the “long road” to recovery snaking in

between. It leaves many of us looking for a change of scenery.

47

wealth, property and other things as an end in themselves, that we violate God’s commandments. That is why He warns us: ‘O you who have faith! Do not let your possessions and children distract you from the remembrance of God, and whoever does that - it is they who are the losers.’ (63:9).

Notice that God uses the word ‘loss’ here in the same way as someone would talk about making a loss in a business transaction. This is because when we prioritise worldly gains at the expense of the Hereafter, we really are trading away something precious for something that will be ultimately worthless as whatever we have, ultimately belongs to God, because we are His servants and we should not be overly troubled by the loss of this property; He has only given it to us for a short time and He will take it away whenever He sees fit.

God says that he brings about difficulties ‘so that you may not grieve for what escapes you, nor exult for what comes your way’ (57:23). This means whenever we find ourselves in difficulties, we must remember that our provision rests only with God and that everything is a test for us

Fourth, if we want to worship God through our work, we must always give other people their rights. God says that He will forgive the sins that people commit against God, but He will not forgive those people who wrong others. In other words, God gives greater priority to the rights of His servants (haqq al-nas) than He gives to His own rights over them.

It’s easy not to cheat anyone and focus on God when you’re not involved in this world, but the temptation is much greater when you are earning a liveli-hood and thus have financial respon-sibilities weighing heavy on your shoul-ders. Someone might say this puts the believer at a disadvantage in business, but this is where giving precedence to the Hereafter is really important;

Fifth and finally, we must use our wealth in the way which God has ordained. There are several dimensions to this. Firstly, in general, it means we must not use our property for anything illicit, nor must we waste it, God admonishes mankind: ‘do not waste; indeed He does not like the wasteful’ (7:31). Second, it means paying whatever religious taxes we owe (khums, zakat etc.) and putting aside some of our disposable income to give as voluntary charity (sadaqa) and spend in the Way of God.

God wants us to use our wealth responsibly and in moderation; neither spending extravagantly on ourselves, nor giving so much away that there is nothing left for ourselves and our families. God says: ‘Do not keep your hand chained to your neck, nor open it

altogether, or you will sit blameworthy, regretful’ (17:29). This shows that God is not concerned with how much you spend in charity, only that you spend something for it.

‘Returning to the tradition of the Prophet(s); ‘This world is a prison for the believer and a paradise for the disbeliever,’ the Prophet’s own grandson, Imam Hasan(a), was smartly dressed on one occasion. We are told that a disbeliever in an impoverished state came to him and said: ‘I thought your Prophet said this world is a prison for the believer and a paradise for the disbeliever!’ He replied: ‘This is my prison and that is your paradise.’ The Imam’s response, far from a mere affir-mation of the Prophet’s words, is incred-ibly profound. First, the disbeliever compared their respective conditions in this world as if to say that no believer should ever be wealthy or successful

in worldly matters; a view which we have seen has no basis in the teach-ings of Islam. Meanwhile, the Imam’s response subtly shifts the focus to the Hereafter. It is as though he is saying: ‘The comforts of this world are a prison when compared to those of the Here-after, and the sufferings of this world are a paradise compared to those of the Hereafter.’ Second, the Imam’s response also reveals something deeper; namely that what makes this world a prison for the believer and a paradise for the disbeliever is not their outward states, but their mentality. A disbeliever, even if he is the poorest man in the world, sees this world as a place to indulge his every whim to the best of his ability. On the other hand, a believer, even if he is the wealthiest man to ever live, sees this world as a place of trial and testing, and

he sees all of his worldly wealth and success as only being valu-able insofar as he can use it to strive for the Hereafter. And that is the abiding success. •

Alexander Khaleeli is a researcher and student in the Hawza ‘Ilmiyyah of Qum. He earned his BA and MA at the Islamic College in London.

Prophets have not only worked to earn a living - even doing demanding physical

labour, such as farming – but have encouraged others to do likewise as an act

of worship.

48

From Knowledge to Belief

There is a close relation between knowledge, belief and action. Ahmad Haneef traces the process of acquiring belief and the path leading to it

49

5050

The Holy Prophet(s) said:

“Iman (belief) is inner knowledge with the heart, attestation with the tongue

and action with the limbs”.

We all know what we believe in, but what is belief itself? The above quota-tion of the Prophet tells us the answer. It begins with knowledge of the heart which is something that is hidden and known only to the individual and God and ends with the outward manifesta-tion of its existence in behaviour.

It is instructive for us to know that the word used for knowledge in the narra-tion is ma’rifat which we have trans-lated as ‘inner knowledge’. The second type of knowledge, ‘ilm, describes the acquisitive type of knowledge, the one we acquire by observation, experience and research. This is the knowledge of the mind, and its truthfulness is directly dependent upon the data available to it and the rules of logical proofs that it utilises in order to arrive at conclusions.

Ma’rifat, or inner knowledge, is directly revealed to the heart from God. It requires the seeker to polish his heart and remove the stains of sins from it to reflect the truth revealed to it without distortion. This knowledge is what is comprehended by the intellect which is the organ by which we perceive the hidden reality of things.

To have inner knowledge of something is to know its spiritual reality or (ruh). Apart from ruh we have another word in the Arabic language, ‘ma’naa’ or (meaning). Every object in creation is considered a sign of God and each has hidden meanings which are unveiled to the believers and those who purify themselves from sin.

The knowledge of things, whether ‘acquired knowledge’ or ‘inner knowl-edge’, gives the knower power over that object. The relationship of knowledge to power can be understood by the word ‘comprehend’ which etymologically means to include and to take or grasp together. The first meaning of compre-

hension involves the idea of knowledge as something that implies a process of integration into a whole and indeed we cannot understand something unless we can place it within the context of what we already know. With respect to ma’rifat this occurs within the context of our very soul, for knowledge acts as a food for the soul. In this sense knowl-edge is an act of completion.

The second etymological meaning of comprehension implies that the knowledge of something gives power to the knower of that thing - the English language also uses the verb ‘to grasp’ with the meaning of ‘understanding’.

The hand has always been the symbol of power, and grasping symbolises having power over something such that one can manipulate it and make it do one’s bidding.

Knowledge gives us power. The Qur’an tells us that the Prophet Adam(a) only became God’s vicegerent with power over creation, after being taught all the names. However our knowledge cannot reach a full understanding of God. We can get close to Him, we can know about Him, but His essence is ultimately inscrutable, for if we could completely know Him it would mean that He would be under our power, within our grasp and that would be impossible.

Inner knowledge is the knowledge of the essential meaning of things but acquired knowledge is the knowledge of the physical reality of things. Whereas one can encompass things material and immaterial, the other can only encom-pass the material.

The limitations of empirical knowledge can be seen in the science and tech-

nology that emerges from it when it is not guided by the spirit. It is the science that characterises our modern world. Instead of protecting and maintaining the environment it degrades it; instead of integrating human society and the individual’s holistic development it frag-ments it; and instead of empowering man it makes him even more power-less despite the increased ‘knowledge’ he has acquired of the world and the universe.

The object of inner knowledge is the very self of the knower because the soul of man is a microcosm of all of created reality. It is for this reason we have the narration that says, ‘He who knows himself knows his Lord.” This is because creation is the sum total of the Signs of God, the expression of His Names and His Self-disclosure for the elevation of the seeker of Truth.

Thus, unlike the exoteric material scientist who focuses only upon fragments of the macrocosm, spiritual man does not exclude the observer or the self as an object in his search for knowledge. He sees reality as the Great Book of signs which includes him as well. The Book has a narrative and a meaning and thus, to know the meaning of reality one

has to know and accept ones position in the divine narrative. Thus spiritual knowledge necessitates the knowledge and practice of proper behaviour in the environment. To behave inappropriately would be to disrupt the meaning of the Book of creation and invite a Divine adjustment to restore the balance which is what we call Divine justice. By neglecting the self of the knower, modern science ends up destroying the narrative and introducing chaos.

Inner knowledge becomes externalised first via speech. Inward speech is at the level of conceptualisation or internal articulation and the outward level is the stage of vocalisation. Speech reflects a direct knowledge of the essence of the things already present in our mind at

Every object in creation is considered a sign of God and each has hidden meanings which are unveiled to the believers and

those who purify themselves from sin.

5151

the stage of conceptualisation.

In terms of belief, for someone to be defined as a Muslim, it is not enough for the shahadah (declaration of faith) to be internally expressed. It must also be outwardly expressed in vocalised speech. That is why to become a Muslim one is required to testify that no one has the right to be worshipped but God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. This speech has the miraculous capacity to transform and change things, especially specific speech where the outward form itself has transformative power such as the recitation of the Qur’an, prayers and supplications in Arabic.

Sublime reality must be communicated and the highest level of this communica-tion is with words. For this reason many of the great scholars of inner knowledge have striven to articulate and rationalise their visions and intuitions, placing them within a structure to share with and educate others who have not yet experienced them. Indeed this is exactly what the Qur’an does in its eschatological descriptions.

Action with the limbs is the last degree of belief and stands at the level of conduct or behaviour. It is activity in conformity with the truth. It is the level of Islam itself or submission to God’s commands. The deeper the faith, the more natural, automatic and unwilled the actions will be, and the more the believer finds happiness and content-ment in performing the actions required of him as God has ordained:

“The hypocrites indeed seek to deceive God, but it is He who outwits them. When they stand up for prayer they stand up lazily, showing off to the people and not remembering God except a little, wavering in between: neither with these nor with those.” (4:142)

Activity in conformity with the spirit and truth functions to further strengthen the spirit in a feedback loop by creating the environmental and psychological context for belief to be nurtured. Imam

Jafar al-Sadiq(a) is reported to have said:

“Faith is only consolidated in someone through action.”

At the furthest distance of the path of faith, the level of action with the limbs, the cycle returns once again upwards by strengthening the very organ from which spiritual knowledge and certainty spring - the heart. It is a metaphor for man himself, who, at the lowest level of creation acts as the instrument for reintegrating all of creation back to the Divine Source.

So the path of belief traverses the full tripartite reality of man, from the inward to the outward: the spiritual centre, the mind and the body as represented by the heart, the tongue and the limbs. It does this through the processes of witnessing and conviction,

conceptualisation, and articulation and action in conformity to the Divine Will. •

Ahmad Haneef is a Canadian Islamic scholar. He currently lives and works in London as a researcher and lecturer on Islam.

It is the science that characterises our modern world.[…] instead of empowering man it makes him even more powerless despite the increased ‘knowledge’ he has acquired of the world and the universe.

52

Interfaith

The mystery of the Holy Grail

The legend of the Holy Grail discloses an intriguing Islamic strand, believes Frank Gelli, raising the intriguing possibility that Muslim and Christian seekers alike could

qualify as Knights of the Round Table

53

The mystery of the Holy Grail

54

The legend of the Holy Grail is a mystery around which scholarly debate continues to rage. Does the Grail stand

for a sacred vessel? An ancient cup, a dish or what? Are its powers and qualities magical or purely mystical and spiritual, benefiting only the true seekers, the pure in heart? What is the precise relation of the Grail narratives to the dazzling legends of King Arthur and shining Knights of the Round Table like Lancelot, Perceval and Galahad? Is it basically a Christian story or does it include deeper, more universal strands and meanings? If the former, why has the Church never given the legend official recognition? If the latter, can perhaps a Muslim dimension be detected in the Grail? And so on.

Pierre Ponsoye’s intricate book, Islam and the Grail, both discovers and emphasises hitherto neglected Islamic features in this fascinating tradition. That may well have been one of the reasons why the ecclesiastical authorities refused the story any theo-logical imprimatur. By contrast, Ponsoye implicitly maintains the notion that the Holy Grail, whatever its elusive nature, is of high spiritual interest to people of the sister mono-theistic faiths. The Holy Grail then may become an enigmatic but stimulating interfaith emblem. In that sense, Muslim and Christian seekers could all be dubbed honorary Knights of the Round Table!

According to the Catholic Encyclo-paedia the vast literature about the Grail consists of medieval romances. They can be usefully distinguished into two main, separate but not unrelated categories. The first group tells about the search for it, the quest for the sacred object. Further, they also narrate the adventures and the personality or character of the heroes of the search. The second category focuses on the history and nature of Grail itself. Ponsoye concentrates on the first group - the mystical quest and its protago-nists. Eminently, he studies the 13th

century epic German poem composed by Wolfram von Eschenbach, entitled Parzifal.

On perusal the reader learns how poet Wolfram confessed that his book relies on the work of another author, a certain Kyot. ‘In Toledo’ a city until recently part of Moorish Spain, Kyot ‘found some forgotten manuscripts in Arabic and in them the plot of the adventures of those engaged in the quest.’ We additionally learn of an astronomer called Fleg-etanis. By examining and probing into the stars this sage had delved into heav-enly mysteries so awesome that merely speaking of them made him tremble: one of these was the existence of the Grail. Angels had taken the wondrous celestial object down to earth and then departed.

So, Wolfram informs us that it was from an Arabic text from Arab-ruled al-Andalus that the reality of the inef-

fable mystery was first revealed. The Catholic Encyclopaedia contends that this account is open to ‘grave doubt’ but note how Wolfram states clearly that his narrative is ‘veridical’. As to Flegetanis, he is termed ‘a wise pagan’. We of course know that it was by this incor-rect and derogatory word that Muslims were sometimes designated in the Middle Ages, to distinguish them from Christians and Jews. To have the writer’s Islamic identity openly asserted would have been embarrassing. However, Flegetanis’ father is indeed declared to be an Arab. Further hints connect him with Solomon son of David. King Solomon, venerated by Muslims as a great Prophet and was endowed with high mystical and extraordinary knowledge and powers. Solomon, in

fact the builder of that sublime house of God, known to Jews as the Temple of Jerusalem and to Muslims as Al-Aqsa.

The charge of Flegetanis being a pagan - even an idolater - is actually a bit self-contradictory. How could someone so deprived of the light of Truth actually have been so supernaturally gifted to pry into the stars, God’s creation above, and thus been granted knowledge of the arcane origins of the Grail? Anyway, Flegetanis’ very name yields insight into his Islamic identity. Analysis suggests that it stands for the Arabic words Felek-thani or second sphere, or second planetary realm. A dimension which, a certain Muslim esoterism claims, is presided over by Seyydna Issa, Jesus, no less.

For Ponsoye reference to the Temple necessarily brings in the Templars. The famed, medieval chivalrous order of warrior-monks. Conventional notions

associate them with Crusaders but it is significant that the Templars’ enemies accused them of having secret pacts with Muslims, in order to establish a peace common to both faiths. We know of one case when a Muslim dignitary called Osama in Jerusalem was chivalrously defended by the Christian Knights against an intolerant fellow Templar,

so that he could say his Salat (Muslim prayer) near the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The idea of chivalry is in fact at the heart of the code of honour that underlies the tradition of the Grail quest. A historian, Hammer-Purgstall, has claimed that the concept and practice of chivalry existed amongst the Arabs prior to its rise in medieval Europe. And which knight or hero was more valiant and perfect in the Islamic tradition than Ali ibn Abi Talib? According to a celebrated hadith (Islamic Tradition) ‘There is no hero but Ali and no sword except Zulfiqar’. It seems that the Arabic word for hero in this passage would be related to futuwwat, meaning not just liberality and generosity but also something like an institution of chivalry. Ali is therefore the exemplar, the prototype, the best of

I venture to say that the hidden meaning of the fabled object [the Holy Grail] is only accessible to true mystics, the genuinely

chivalrous, and the pure ones.

55

all Muslim knights.

What however of the Holy Grail itself? What is it? What does it consist of? To investigate this question we must consider another strand in the rich literature. Robert de Boron’s History of the Grail is one of the saga’s most ancient texts. It speaks of a historical figure, Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph, an influential Pharisee and a member of the Jewish High Council, was a disciple of Jesus. After the Crucifixion he went to Pilate, obtained from him the body of Jesus and buried him in his own tomb. This is asserted in three of the canonical Gospels. To simplify: an intimate follower of the Lord, Joseph had in his possession the cup which Jesus had used at the Last Supper – or perhaps miraculously he was entrusted with the cup by the risen Lord himself. The same cup later collected the sacred blood. Joseph later took it to Britain…and so on.

Clearly, this interpretation of the Grail incorporates key Christian features, even based on the New Testament. Why then has not the Christian Church sanctified it with proper authority? As Julius Evola, author of The Mystery of the Grail, has pointed out this tradi-tion bypasses Rome, the Catholic seat of medieval Christendom, and leads instead directly to Britain, to the Nordic kingdom of the fabulous King Arthur. True, the monks of Glastonbury Abbey did recover the presumed bodies of Arthur and his Queen, Guinevere. They were reburied with all honours in the Abbey in the presence of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor of Castille. A visitor to the ruined Abbey today can still behold the sites of the royal graves, an absolutely thrilling sight. However, in the suspicious eyes of Catholic ortho-doxy it had one fault: the presence of such most sacred relic made the land and church of Britain so illustrious that it could have encouraged autonomy or even breakaway tendencies. Too dangerous a possibility…

So, the Grail. We are left with its lumi-nous mystery. Material or immaterial, who can find it? Who can grasp it? Fusing the De Boron and the Aschen-

bach accounts I venture to say that the hidden meaning of the fabled object is only accessible to true mystics, the genuinely chivalrous, and the pure ones. As the Gospel indeed puts it: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart because they shall see God’. •

Revd Frank Julian Gelli is an Anglican priest, cul-tural critic and a religious controversialist, working on religious dialogue. His last book “Julius Evola: the Sufi of Rome’ is avail-able on Amazon Kindle.

56

Last November a short film appeared on the internet titled: “Fire with Fire”. The heart-rending video showed how a

group of doctors in the US have appar-ently cured a child with leukaemia by “injecting her with HIV cells”.

This experimental procedure received mixed reactions. Some were over-whelmed to see a young girl brought back to good health after suffering from an acute case of the condition. Others were outraged at the sight of a child being made a guinea pig in yet another medical experiment.

In May 2010, Emma, aged six, was diagnosed with the most common type of childhood cancer - ‘acute lympho-blastic leukaemia’ (ALL). Emma had been fighting the illness for two years, but had failed to respond to traditional treatments and could not remain in remission for long enough to attempt a bone marrow transplant.

Her parents had given up hope. In April 2013, they decided to try a cutting edge and experimental treatment. The Cancer Centre at the Children Hospital in Philadelphia offered them a clinical trial tested on adults with positive results but which had not yet been officially approved.

Emma was running out of time and her parents were given less than 48 hours to make a decision after which Emma

would start having organ failure. They decided to go ahead with the procedure in the belief that even if the treatment did not work for Emma, it could provide doctors with information that could help them save other sick children. On April 17 last year, Emma became the first child to undergo the therapy, known as CTL019.

In ‘acute lymphoblastic leukaemia’, a division of cells in the immune system called B-cells become cancerous. Another set of cells called T-cells normally recognise and attack these abnormal B-cells. But the abnormal leukaemia cells have the ability to fly under the radar of the normal T-cells that are meant to kill them.

In the CTL019 trial, Emma’s T-cells were collected from her blood, and then reengineered in a lab to recognise and attach to a protein called CD19 that is found only on the surface of B-cells.

When the re-engineered cells were put back, they dispersed throughout the body where they grew and multiplied, creating an army of killer cells to seek and destroy the cancerous B-cells. The aim in fact was to activate the immune system and turn it on the cancerous cells. As the modified T-cells only attack B-cell tumour cells, the side effects of using this method are far fewer than other traditional therapies in which even normal cells are affected

with chemotherapy drugs or radiation. However this method also has its own adverse effects.

Growing T-cells in the body elevates the level of a certain protein in the blood which can be a serious problem for weak cancer patients. These proteins are the same ones which elevate in rheumatoid arthritis disease, so fortunately, the same drug used in that instance can help with reducing the side effects of CTl019 therapy.

A few days after Emma was injected with her new, modified T-cells, she came down with fever, breathing prob-lems and high blood pressure. She was then given the anti-rheumatoid drugs. Doctors were not hopeful but within hours the fever disappeared. When Emma woke up the cancer was gone.

The Philadelphia team claimed that they have successfully treated nine out of twelve patients (10 adults and 2 chil-dren) using CTL019. They have been

Health

Medical Editor Laleh Lohrasbi

Can HIVcellscure Cancer?How far can medical science go to find cures for acute illnesses? Laleh Lohrasbi looks at CTL019, a cutting edge treatment for leukaemia

57

working on this technique for many years, first developing it in the lab, then testing it on animals, and then taking a step forward with cancer patients.

Results of treatments of two children with ‘acute lymphoblastic leukaemia’, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that one child had a complete remission – which we can assume was Emma - but sadly, the other child did not do well. The cancer returned just two months after the T-cell treatment. Emma herself still goes for a blood check-up every six weeks.

What is the role of the HIV virus in this process?

In the video it was claimed that Emma was cured by being injected with HIV-infected cells. Professor June of the University of Pennsylvania announced in the video that the virus used in these experiments was originally derived from HIV. We even hear the film-maker asking behind the camera “So you’re

taking the HIV virus and infecting healthy cells with it to help kill cancer?” to which the doctor replies: “Yes”.

However later in the recording it is explained that: “The virus has been engineered so that it cannot cause disease any more”. To re-engineer the T-cells, doctors used an altered HIV virus to carry special receptors into the T-cells. In fact, the researchers used a type of virus called a lentivirus. This family of viruses – of which HIV is a member – are particularly skilled at sneaking into cells and embedding their genetic code within the cells’ DNA. Unsurprisingly, this makes them a good vehicle for smuggling in the genetic instruction of T-cells and telling them to attack the cancerous B-cells.

This virus has been genetically changed so it no longer retains the ability to induce disease but is able to sneak into the cells and modify them. Considering how much it has been altered, it is argu-able whether the virus should even be

referred to as HIV at all.

In reality Emma was not injected with the HIV virus and in this case the idea of curing cancer with HIV cells is misleading. Personally, Emma’s case reminds me of a famous tradition of the Prophet Muhammad(s) that, “There is no disease that God has created, except that He also has created its treatment”.

Although it is now clear that no HIV cells in their original infecting form were used, the notion of contemplating the use of deadly viruses as a form of treatment, even modified, terrifies people. Some argue that the risks of such treatments far outweigh their benefits. Others however believe that if such cutting edge methods of treating leukaemia can work then they are worth trying. Professor June is optimistic. Stressing that this is a new treatment, not a cure, she believes that it may well reduce or replace the need for bone marrow transplantation in the years to come. •

58

Most parents do not know the importance of milk teeth and these tiny bones do not get as much attention as

they should during their short lifetime causing problematic consequences.

It is a false belief that milk teeth are not as important as adult teeth as they are destined to fall out. To the contrary taking care of early teeth is as vital as looking after adult ones and is directly related to good dental health in adult life.

In fact prevention of dental problems should start as early as pregnancy. Milk teeth are formed between six and eight weeks of pregnancy and the buds of permanent teeth are formed within the twentieth week right beneath the milk teeth. Women should have a whole-

some and nutritious diet to help proper development of the growing foetus containing calcium rich foods like cheese, milk, yogurt, leafy vegetables and dairy products to ensure healthy teeth and bone development.

When do milk teeth appear?

Although baby teeth (milk) are almost complete before birth they begin to come through between 6-12 months old. They continue to grow until the third year of age and begin to fall out at around five or six. Most children have a full set of 20 milk or baby teeth by the time they’re three years old. These teeth are much smaller than permanent teeth and are whiter – the reason they are called milk teeth. Cutting the milk teeth out often causes sore gums, increased

drooling, loss of appetite and disturbed sleep. Babies may become cranky and want to chew on a toy or their fingers to get relief.

What is the importance of the milk teeth?

Despite the misconception that they do not matter, milk teeth play many roles:

y In the first place these teeth are for chewing, biting and grinding food.

y Milk teeth also act as guides for the permanent teeth which lie beneath. The milk teeth make sure that permanent teeth will come out in the correct place. Losing a milk tooth too early may cause the permanent tooth underneath to be misplaced or even blocked by other teeth.

Laleh Lohrasbi explains how taking proper care of milk teeth is essential to developing healthy permanent teeth

Milk Teeth Beyond a fairy tale

59

y Milk teeth are essential for the devel-opment and growth of the jaw, facial bones and muscles.

y If a milk tooth gets decayed, there is a high chance of passing that decay to the neighbouring permanent tooth. It is important to prevent this as some milk molars remain in the mouth until 12-13 years when neighbouring permanent teeth are already present. If however the milk tooth decay spreads to the root then it can directly affect even the permanent teeth beneath.

Do milk teeth have roots?

Milk teeth have strong long roots, but the buds of permanent teeth beneath them do not have roots in the beginning. When the bud of a permanent tooth begins to come up and grow bigger, its root begins to form, so the root of the milk tooth wears off to give enough space to the permanent tooth. This causes the milk tooth to become loose and fall off. This is the reason why decay in the milk tooth’s root can easily spread to the permanent teeth which lie beneath.

If eradication of the milk tooth’s root does not happen at the right time then it will not become loose and will make it hard for the permanent tooth beneath to emerge. This may cause the permanent tooth to be blocked and became tilted, or the permanent teeth may come out behind or in front of the milk teeth. If this happens the dentist may recommend wiggling of the milk tooth at the appropriate time.

How to take care of milk teeth

Cleaning milk teeth is essential from the very beginning. From birth to the first year of age, the gums and teeth should be wiped with a clean damp cloth and when baby is one year old a soft baby brush can be used. Kids’ toothpaste with 500 ppm fluoride is safe to use by age two. As soon as the toddler learns to gargle and spit, he is ready to be introduced to 1000 ppm toothpaste.

If the baby wakes up several times in

the night to drink milk or is used to falling asleep whilst being fed, the last mouthful of milk may not be swallowed properly so it pools around the teeth and this can cause decay. Milk has sugar which can make an acidic environment in the mouth and cause the calcium of the teeth to dissolve. It is better not let the baby fall asleep with a bottle or while breastfeeding. Baby’s gums should be cleaned and massaged to help establish healthy teeth and to aid in teething. This should be done after every feed. Once the first milk tooth erupts, breastfeeding on baby’s demand should be gradually decreased during the night. If not, it is very important to clean the baby’s teeth immediately after feeding.

As stated above, sugar causes tooth decay. Children who eat sweets frequently have almost twice as much decay than children who consume them

just occasionally. This means that it is important to control how often the teeth are in contact with sugar. Sweet drinks in a bottle or feeder cup and lollipops are particularly damaging because they bathe the teeth in sugar for long periods of time. Acidic drinks such as fruit juice and squash can harm teeth too. This is why it’s better to give them at mealtimes and not in between.

What is mixed teeth period?

At around six years old, kids experience mixed teeth sizes with both milk and permanent teeth in the mouth. This period of mixed teeth is very critical for several reasons;

y New permanent teeth are not fully matured yet so they are weaker and more vulnerable to tooth decay,

y The unevenness of the milk and

permanent teeth makes it difficult for the kids to clean and protect their teeth,

y The “six years molars” which are the first permanent teeth to come out erupt at the back, behind the primary teeth. As they fall off before the milk teeth they are easily confused with permanent teeth and hence ignored.

Dental appointments

Tooth decay is a leading chronic child-hood disease - more common than asthma - but is completely preventable. That is why eruption of the first teeth at around six months is a sign that it is time to arrange a dental appointment. After that a twice-a-year check-up is recommended for most children. Regular dental visits help the child stay cavity free. Some children need more frequent dental visits because of the

increased risk of tooth decay, unusual growth patterns or poor oral hygiene.

The dentist may recommend routine fluoride therapies and check the teeth for “white spots”, which are signs of developing decay. He may also check if the milk teeth and permanent teeth are devel-oping normally. •

Dr Laleh Lohrasbi is a pharmacologist. She has worked as an editor for the medical section of “Hamshahri”, a daily newspaper in Tehran.

Cutting the milk teeth out often causes sore gums, increased drooling, loss of

appetite and disturbed sleep.

60

Places

61

It was a sunny and pleasant day in July when I arrived in Saint Petersburg. I had visited Moscow a few times before but I did not know what to expect in this city, the old capital of Russia. During the communist era, Russia

was perceived as being an isolated place - dark and grey, and hugely unpopular. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist system changed the political map of the area and turned around the lives of the people in this massive country. As a result, world’s view of Russia improved considerably along with its image.

I travelled to St. Petersburg to explore and experience changes for myself.

On my way from the airport to the city, we passed a jungle of boxy concrete buildings that looked rough and gloomy, real eyesores. However, my first impression of the city centre was different from what I had imagined. The stone buildings carved with magnificent architectural designs and coloured in white reflected the city’s rich heritage and style. The city looked brighter and livelier than Moscow.

Located on the 60th latitude, St. Petersburg is the largest northerly city in the world. Mohammad Reza Amirinia, describes the beauty and pleasant atmosphere of this historical city whose skyline once included the largest mosque in Europe.

Petersburg A Northern Jewel

62

It was the weekend and streets were full of people who were dressed as fashionably as those in other European cities. St. Petersburg’s people look more relaxed, less cautious, not so vigilant and less security-conscious than Muscovites. As I strolled along St. Petersburg’s pavements, I saw happy faces smiling back at me. I had read accounts that during the communist era there were hardly any foreign-made cars to be seen in the streets. If people saw a western car, they formed crowds around it. Now there are many imported cars in St. Petersburg, as well as American and Japanese factories all over Russia. In communist times people often wanted to buy jeans and coats from tourists. Today there are many boutiques and large, well-stocked shopping centres.

As I was walking along the banks of Neva River, I noticed several people gathered around a woman robed in a beautiful white designer wedding dress and a well-dressed groom, taking photos of them. The parks, particularly on weekends, are painted white with wedding dresses and become a parade of young couples who bring their wedding parties to a large audience in the middle of the city. Marrying couples share their happiness and joy with other inhabitants. I crossed the Palace Bridge to watch the display of the navy ships that had been anchored nearby. I became aware that many different types of locks, bolts and padlocks covered the bridge railings. I smiled and recalled the first time I saw the same things in Moscow. I was initially under the impression that the locks were placed there as prayers and good luck charms. It was only later that I discovered this was a tradition enacted by newly married couples; they place a lock on the bridge and

throw the key into the river as a sign that they intend to keep their marriage bond forever.

I continued my journey through the city and discovered a network of canals and waterways with many small arched bridges which resemble the Venetian lagoons and its beautiful bays. Its embankments were similar to those in London and resonant of the Left and Right banks in Paris. As I walked around, I got a sense that this city was planned differently as a window to mirror the glamorous capitals of Europe.

I crossed the river to reach the Peter and Paul Fortress to explore a stronghold with fortified walls built to defend the city. It is the birthplace of the city and its first structure. The site was never used for what it was intended. Instead in its short history it has been used as a military base, government offices, the site of scientific experiments and an isolated and gloomy prison. The centrepiece of the fortress and one of the most prominent buildings and landmarks in St. Petersburg is the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

As I ended my tour, and left through the large wooden gates of the fortress with a triumphal arch decorated with the imperial coat of arms, I headed towards a small bridge over a canal and a heavily populated beach. It was here that I caught sight of a blue dome rising majestically above leafy trees in the distance. When I got nearer and saw two high-rise minarets erected close together, I was surprised to see the façade of a mosque decorated by oriental adornments and blue mosaics. The walls were grey granite, with beautiful blue ceramics covering minarets and a dome. The front of the building was delicately

63

decorated with calligraphy using Quranic verses.

Many mosques and churches were demolished during communist rule. However, Saint Petersburg Mosque, which was built in 1920, has survived. It is a large place of worship which can accommodate over five thousand worshippers. Before I entered the mosque, I saw a man standing by the fence holding it firmly, moving his head murmuring quietly as if he was praying. I could not approach him as he was immersed in his own peaceful world.

The mosque’s caretaker, a limping old man with a luminous white beard and wearing sober waistcoat and black hat welcomed me inside. His warm gaze told me in an unspoken language that this place belonged to everyone, to people of every faith. It was as much a shrine for Christians and Jews as Muslims and others who seek refuge to get answers to their prayers. I found out later that the whole community of St. Petersburg, people of diverse religions, all contributed to the restoration of the mosque, another great treasure of this wonderful city.

The caretaker escorted me inside the high ceilinged mosque complete with its green marble columns. Several chandeliers

6464

65

Mohammad Reza Amirinia is a freelance writer and photojournalist. www.amirinia.com

lit the prayer hall, which was strewn with many hand-made rugs and carpets. The mosque sanctuary where the imam leads the prayer is another outstanding architectural feature combining sky-blue mosaics, marbles, and calligraphy and miniature paintings. A large wooden pulpit made of walnut wood next to the sanctuary marked the place from where the imam delivers his sermons.

On the way back to my residence, I reflected on the day’s experiences. I realised that this journey around St. Petersburg, named in honour of its founder, takes travellers through a dream metropolis. Peter the Great had derived his vision through inspiration from other European capitals. His aim had been to recreate Europe’s most significant places in Russia. He captured the architectural magnificence of the Palace of Versailles by building the Hermitage. He constructed cathedrals such as St. Isaac with its unique golden dome to replicate St. Paul’s in London and mirror the glory of those in Rome. The streets of Russia’s old capital have the glow of Amsterdam, yet are filled with the sensations of Vienna. Saint Petersburg is an alluring treasure, packed with pleasure and elegance, perfected by a visionary King.

Saint Petersburg is truly a must-see, a work of art with many magnificent features, a Crown Jewel of Europe and a cosmopolitan city that embraces Christians, Muslims and Jews. •

©am

irin

ina.

com

66

Through January

Friday Nights Thought Forum London’s Weekly Open Gathering.

Venue: Islamic Centre of England, 140 Maida Vale, London W9 1QBTime: 19:30 - 21:00Web: www.icel.co.uk

The Muslim DNA (London and Manchester)

A two day personal development course by AlKauthar Institute on the character of a Muslim that will discuss the three key areas in personal development: the individual, the family and the commu-nity.

4 & 5 JanuaryLondon Venue: University of East London, Docklands Campus University Way, E16 2RDTime: 08:30 AM - 7:00 PM on both days25& 26 JanuaryManchester Venue & Time: To Be ConfirmedPrice: £60Web: More Info: http://www.alkauthar.org

10 January

Islamic Soundscapes in ChinaThis conference is meant to draw to-gether an interdisciplinary group of international scholars interested in the ethnographically grounded, theoretical-ly informed study of local Islamic prac-tices within Muslim communities across China.

Keynote speaker: Professor Jonathan Lipman

Venue: SOAS, University of London, Russell Square, College Buildings, Room 116Time: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PMWeb: www.soas.ac.uk/music/events/islamic-soundscapes-of-china/

12 January

Love Muhammad; The Prophet of MercyThis campaign was established to de-nounce the insults made against the

Prophet(s) as well as providing the plat-form for unity in the UK between Mus-lims.

Organised by: World Forum for Proximity Venue: Wembley Stadium Great Hall Time: Doors open at 17:30 Web: www.LoveMuhammad.co.uk

13, 20 and 27 January (through March)

IMES Seminar Series - Islamic Civilisation and the Islamic Tradition: Past and PresentEach session in the series will cover different areas, the three in January be-ing: The Myth of Umayyad Kingship, The Rum Seljuqs and their neighbours, From Islamic Law to Lawyer’s Law: A Personal Experience.

Speakers: Luke Treadwell (University of Oxford), Songül Mecit (University of Ed-inburgh) and Mona Siddiqui (University of Edinburgh) respectively.

Venue: Room G2, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, 19 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LDTime: 5:30 PM - 6.30 PMWeb: www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/literatures-languages-cultures/islamic-middle-eastern

16 January

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: A Critical PerspectiveThe Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) - created by the UN Security Council to try the assassins of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri on Febru-ary 14th, 2005 - is scheduled to start its hearings on January 13th, 2014. After a short presentation of the background and creation of the STL, the speaker will present an overview of the indict-ment and the prosecution’s pre-trial brief.

Speaker: Dr Omar Nashabe

Chair: Professor Christine Chinkin

Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AETime: 6.30 PM - 8.00 PMWeb: www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents

18 January

Qalam: the art of beautiful writingThis exhibition brings this vibrant and distinctive art form to the heart of Bir-mingham, showcasing historic manu-scripts, decorated objects and con-temporary art. Enjoy the beauty and harmony of Islamic penmanship with your family and friends and learn how its aesthetic appeal crosses borders of time, space, language and culture.

Venue: Galleries 12 and 13, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3DH. Time: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PMOther Events: Calligraphy workshop for adults - 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM, Tickets: £10.25 (Places are limited and advance booking is essential.)Calligraphy workshop for families - 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM, Tickets: £3 per child (Drop in) Web: www.bmag.org.uk/events?id=2851

Child Abuse and Neglect - Looked after children: adoption and fostering and the Muslim communitiesThe last of a series of events organised by the Muslim Institute to address the issues of child abuse and neglect and explore safeguarding children and en-gaging with the diverse, Muslim com-munities of Britain.

Venue: Muslim Institute, CAN Mezzanine, 49-51 East Road London N1 6AH

67

Time: 10:00 AM- 4:00 PMPrice: £30 waged/ £10 unwaged. Attendance is free for Muslim Institute FellowsWeb: www.musliminstitute.org/eventsEmail & Bookings: samia@musliminstitute.org

20 January

Agency and Gender in Gaza: masculinity, femininity and family during the second intifadaIn this talk, Dr Aitemad Muhanna-Ma-tar will discuss her new book, which is based on extensive ethnographic field-work (2007-2008) among women and men in poor households in diverse loca-tions in Gaza, when the prolonged clo-sure of Gaza borders and the destruc-tion of its political economy caused the majority of Gazan households to be-come reliant on humanitarian aid.

Speaker: Dr Aitemad Muhanna-Matar

Chair: Dr Sumi Madhok

Venue: The London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AETime: 6.30 PM - 8:00 PMWeb: www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/

25 January

Documentary film and discussionFilm and open discussion of Muslim women’s experiences of the ‘hijab’ and ‘niqab’ led by Dr Haifaa Jawad (Univer-sity of Birmingham).

Venue: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3DHTime: 2:00 PM - 4:00PMWeb: www.bmag.org.uk/events

25 January and 1 February

6th Annual Winter Walk for Gaza (London & Manchester)

The Gaza Winter Walk organised by Muslim Hands has seen thousands of people from across the country come

together to raise funds for the children of Gaza. Muslim Hands hope to make it possible for Gaza’s children to receive psycho-social care and medical check-ups in a part of the world where there is not enough help available.

London 25 January Venue: Hyde Park, London. Manchester 1 February Venue: Heaton Park, Manchester Time: Registration and set-up from 10:00 AM. Walk begins 11:00 AM.Web: muslimhands.org.uk/events/2014/winter-walk-for-gaza/

26 January

‘Can Muslims Escape Misogyny?’ ConferenceThis conference will address the in-justices against women which persist across communities and cultures the world over, and ask where Islam stands on countering these issues.

Organiser: The Deen Institute

Speakers: Prof Tariq Ramadan, Dr In-grid Mattson, Dr Zainab Alwani, Dr Shu-ruq Naguib, Ustadha Safia Shahid, Ma-nal Omar & Dr Laura Zahra McDonald.

Time: 9AM to 6:30PMWeb: www.thedeeninstitute.com/tdi-events/conferences/escape-misogyny

27 January

The Arab Uprising: results and prospectsAway from impressionistic reactions, Gilbert Achcar will assess and discuss the latest developments in the Arab-speaking region on the occasion of the publication of his recent book, The Peo-ple Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising.

Speaker: Professor Gilbert Achcar

Venue: The London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AETime: 6:30 PM - 8:00 PMWeb: www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events

Through 31 January

Muslim Writers Awards: Share stories, come together. It’s time, Write Now!The Young Muslim Writers Awards is looking for young people who love to write! Whether it’s writing a short story or penning a poem that you enjoy, sub-mit your work to the competition.

Ages: 5-16 years (Entrants must be permanent residents in the United Kingdom.)Terms & Conditions:www.muslimwritersawards.org.uk/submit-workDeadline: 31st January 2014.

Every Wednesday through 12 February

Spiritual Mysteries and Ethical SecretsIslamic Centre of England Adult Learn-ing Programme

Based on the famous work of Allamah Fayd Kashani “Al-haqa’iq fi mahasin al-Ta’wil”

Taught by: Shaykh M.S. Bahmanpour

Venue: Islamic Centre of England, 140 Maida Vale, London W9 1QBTime: 7:30 PM - 9:00 PMCourse fee: Regular rate: £30 Student rate: £20Web: www.ic-el.com Email: education@ic-el.com Tel: 02076045500