Kalam, Shah Rukh in most influential Muslims list, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Kalam, Shah Rukh in most influential Muslims list

NEW DELHI: In a first of its kind survey of the world’s most influential Muslims, Georgetown University has come out with a list of 500 among

whom are prominent Indians like former President A P J Abdul Kalam, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan and music maestro A R Rahman.

What, however, has come as a surprise is the choice of an Urdu professor at Aligarh Muslim University for his propagation of moderate Sufi views in a region being blighted by jihadi terror.

Professor Sayid Ameen Mian Qaudri, ranked 44 on the list, is a “leader of a South Asian Sufi movement based in a volatile region where religion has been used as a platform for violence”, the editors said in their comment.

Another interesting selection is that of Maulana Mahmood Madani, leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and MP, who has campaigned against Islamic terror. “Madani has been outspoken in his opposition to the misuse of the term ‘jihad’ as a tool of terrorism in India,” the university said justifying the highest rank — 36 — given to him among his compatriots on the list.

Noted Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer, leader of the progressive Dawoodi Bohra movement, finds space for his “take on Islam and contemporary issues”.

Another choice for the ‘scholarly’ category is spiritual leader Wahiduddin Khan, hailed by the volume as “Islam’s spiritual ambassador to the world”. His approach, it is pointed out, is “popular among Indians, both Muslim and non-Muslim”.

Interestingly, the list, which features Osama bin Laden, Maulana Masood Azhar and Hafiz Mohammad Saeed among the ‘radicals’, has focused on the moderate faces of Islam from India. Zakir Abdul-Karim Naik is another such Islamic teacher included for promoting understanding about Islam.

http://newageislam.com/kalam,-shah-rukh-in-most-influential-muslims-list/islamic-world-news/d/2213

Hafiz Saeed: Politics, not law, set him free, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Hafiz Saeed: Politics, not law, set him free

By Irfan Hussain

June 14th, 2009

WE shoot ourselves in the foot with predictable regularity. Take the release of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed from house arrest, for example.

Picked up in the crackdown on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s successor, in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks last November, Saeed spent around six months in “custody” before being sprung recently by the Lahore high court on grounds of insufficient evidence.

This is not the first time clerics accused of sundry crimes of violence have walked out of comfortable sojourns at home. Another leader of a jihadi outfit was arrested some seven years ago following attacks on the Srinagar Assembly that killed 30. Days later, the Parliament building in New Delhi was attacked, and again Jaish-e-Mohammad was implicated.

After the usual dance of denial, Maulana Masood Azhar was arrested and, later, the Jaish was banned. Nevertheless, relations between India and Pakistan plunged, and the two countries came close to war. For months, their respective armies were eyeball to eyeball, and the world feared a nuclear exchange.

Even then, the Maulana was no stranger to legal restrictions: he had been arrested by Indian authorities in Kashmir in 1994, and released in a deal to free hostages taken in an Indian Airlines plane hijacking in December 1999. Although Pakistan initially denied he had entered the country from Afghanistan after his release, Masood Azhar soon addressed a rally in Karachi where he said: “I have come here because it is my duty to tell you that Muslims should not rest in peace until we have destroyed America and India”.

http://newageislam.com/hafiz-saeed--politics,-not-law,-set-him-free---/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1469