From: imnet2@max.u.washington.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: ISLAMIC WORLD NEWS (1st)
Date: 5 Sep 92 17:34:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: max.1992Sep5.103409.1

******************************************************************
*     IN THIS ISSUE:                                             *
*                   - NEWS UPDATE                                *
*                   - ISLAM AND EVOLUTION (PART I)               *
*                             By Imam Mohammed H. Asi            *
*                   - ANNOUNCEMENTS                              *
*                             The week of unity program in LA    *
******************************************************************

TAJIKISTAN
Has the old fox, Rakhman Nabiyev, the communist-turned-nationalist,
in Tajikistan, finally been driven from office?
News from Dushanbe on September 4 suggested that the opposition,
led by the Islamic Renaissance Party and the Democratic Party may
have forced Nabiyev out of office.
He is reportedly hiding in a military base just outside
Dushanbe, the Tajik capital.
The latest series of developments started on August 31 when
hundreds of opposition supporters stormed the presidential
palace and took a number of ministers hostage.
They demanded Nabiyev's resignation because they charged that
he had failed to fulfil the promises made last May when the
opposition allowed him to stay in power in return for certain
reforms.
Nabiyev had rigged the November presidential elections in
order to stay in power. He is an old timer from the
Brezhnev era.
He has managed to survive so long simply because he has
been able to divide the people by pitting one tribe against
another.
In the latest crisis too, Nabiyev tried the same trick but it
appears that people had wisened to his crooked ways.
He cannot be written off yet, unless there are clear indications
from the Tajik parliament to declare that his rule is over.
A special session of the Tajik parliament on September 4
failed to materialize because not enough members turned up
to make up a quorum.
Meanwhile, the speaker of the Tajik parliament has warned Russia
and other members of the Commonwealth not to interfere in
Tajikistan's affairs.
Such interference cannot be ruled out although Russia already
has enough on its plate in the Abkhazia region where the
Georgian mafia, led by the zionist Eduard Shevardnadze, has
been battling Abkhaz freedom fighters.
Last July when Abkhazia's parliament indicated that it wanted
independence from Georgia, Shevardnadze sent in the tanks.
At least 50 people have been killed in the fighting which
was temporarily stopped after the intervention of Boris
Yeltsin, the Russian president, in person.
A meeting held in Moscow on September 3 agreed that Georgian
troops would be withdrawn from Abkhazia and replaced by
Russian troops.
In Tajikistan, this is not likely to happen. Already, several
hundred people have been killed there but Tajikistan's
advantage is that it borders Afghanistan and there have been
reports of arms being brought in to help the Muslims fight
the communist old guard still entrenched in Dushanbe.

AFRICA
The famine in Somalia is much worse than has so far been reported.
This gloomy assessment was given by Muhammad Sahnoun, the UN envoy
for Somalia.
Sahnoun reported on September 4 that millions of others in remote
parts of the country are starving to death as well.
Relief efforts have been hampered by armed bandits robbing supply
convoys and selling the grain in the open market.
Further, the various factions involved in their fratricidal wars
are simply struggling to grab power while millions are dropping
dead like flies.
The problem in the rest of Africa is little better. In fact,
estimates by charity organizations indicate that there may be
as many as 40 million people affected by famine in Africa.
The problem is caused both by civil wars as well as drought.
Zimbabwe is a good example. It was a net exporter of
grain but this year it is gripped by a severe drought forcing it
to impose rationing and to resort to importing grain.

INDONESIA
At the non-aligned summit meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, the assembled
heads attempted to justify the existence of a body that is finding
it difficult to rationalize why it exists.
This state of affairs has come about because the cold war is over
and now there is only one "superpower" that demands unquestioning
obedience.
There were however some sparks at even the non-aligned summit.
Most members condemned the US and the UN for failing to
respond to Bosnia's plight with the same vigour as they did in
case of Kuwait vis-a-vis Iraq. This frightened Suharto, the
Indonesian president and host because he did not want to see
too much criticism of the US, but not all members were in a
mood to compromise.
President Rafsanjani of Iran called for abolishing the veto
power of the five permanent members of the security council.
Boutros Boutros Ghali, the UN secretary general who is a
Copt, immediately responded by saying that it would be
impossible to achieve that. He suggested instead that
the non-aligned members should press for the expansion of the
security council.
Pakistan's prime minister brought up the question of Kashmir
which the Indians found quite embarrassing. Not much, however,
is expected from the nonaligned meeting by way of resolving
the Kashmir question despite a meeting between the Indian and
Pakistani prime ministers about the issue.
President Burhanuddin Rabbani of Afghanistan, while on his
way to Jakarta, had revealed in Delhi during a stop-over, that
he would call a Loya Jirga (a grand assembly of tribal elders)
to work out the future course for Afghanistan.
The ceasefire arranged by the Pakistani minister of State
for foreign affairs, Muhammad Siddiq Kanju, seems to be
holding in Kabul so far.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has closed its border to refugees from
Afghanistan. A government spokesman announced on September 3
that Pakistan would send food aid into Afghanistan but will not
accept refugees coming in anymore.

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EVENT SCAN ###############################################################

                    ISLAM AND REVOLUTION

By Imam Mohammed H. Asi

Part I

     Before I  begin this  subject I would like to refer, if
possible, to  the state of nature of man, before `Islam' and
before `  revolution' gained  their modern day connotations.
Way back in the early years of mankind, in the generation of
Nuh, Ibrahim,  Musa, etc.  . .  in those  days there  was  a
serious difference  between the  contents of  Musa's  -  for
example -  message and  the pattern  of life within which he
lived. The  nature of  this difference  was a life and death
issue. if  he insists  on pursuing his line of revolutionary
methodology and  thought until  its end,  he and  those  who
followed him  could not escape the inevitable encounter with
the established powers of those days. This generalization is
applicable to  the other  prophets and  emissaries who  were
commissioned  by  Allah  to  establish  contact  with  their
peoples. At  that time  there was no `Islam' as we (and I am
referring to  the victims of the media) understand it today.
The  media   (magazines,  newspapers,   radio,  TV,  movies,
orientalists,  etc.   .  .   )  have  robbed  Islam  of  its
quintessential  quality  and  equated  its  meaning  with  a
deviant slant  towards any  variety of  concoctions, such as
Wahhabism,  Sunnism,   Shi'ism,  Sufism,   Black  Muslimism,
Mohammadanism, religiousity,  spirituality, and so on and so
forth ad  nauseam. This  is not  to  say  that  these  above
notions are  correct or incorrect. Some may totally be right
or wrong,  and some  may be  partially right  or wrong.  The
issue I  want to  refer to  here is  the displacement of the
Quranic meaning  of ISLAM  which  encompassed  a  period  of
struggle beginning  with the  inception of man, and from the
very first days of Adam and this meaning will continue until
man ceases  to exist as man on earth. The undermining of the
Quranic definition  of Islam  was by  no means  a simple  or
random process. This process in itself constitutes a subject
matter for, may be, another paper. This is on one hand.

     On the  other hand,  the word `revolution' has suffered
from the  same quarters.  The word  revolution -  due to the
desires and  interests  of  the  media  magnates  -  wobbles
between change  or radical change at one end, and disruption
and lawlessness at the other end. (Here we are avoiding such
media generated  implications as:  terror,  chaos,  anarchy,
Pandemonium, etc.  . .)  as was  the case  with the  media's
connotations  (suggestions)   concerning  ISLAM,   the  same
applies to  REVOLUTION.  We  cannot  find  in  the  Quran  a
justification   for    these   connotations.   However   the
intentions, purpose,  will, and  ambition of these words are
to  be   found  in   the  divine  writ  according  to  their
unadulterated meanings  and implications.  Here I cannot but
comment on  the unfortunate  and sad state of affairs of the
contemporary Arabic  language. In the past one hundred years
or so,  this language  of the  Quran has been the subject of
policies  and   educational   and   cultural   attacks,   in
particular, all  aiming at  undermining  this  link  between
heaven  and   earth.  Some   imperialist   and   colonialist
administrations guided  by orientalists  plus their  zombies
wanted to colloquialize it, others wanted to Latinize it. Of
course it  withstood all  these assaults, but in the process
the Quran's communique was made ever so harder to understand
by readers of the Quran!
     Here in  passing we  may detect the virtue of those who
translated the  meaning of  the Quran  into Farsi  and  kept
these meanings  alive by  the succeeding Imams and Ulama. In
retrospect this  may have  been a divine deflection by Allah
in which  the momentous  drive of  Islam was preserved.  The
centuries old  Euro-Imperialist concentration on braking its
vicious attacks  upon the  Muslims  who  were  in  the  Arab
speaking part  of the  Ummah -  although it  was  relatively
successful -  was to  offer the  Farsi speaking  Muslims the
opportunity to take the lead in reinstating Islam anew. This
can be  unmistakably demonstrated  with the  word revolution
itself. In  the Arab context `revolution' to the awakening -
but still immature - Muslims was and still is, especially in
the Arabian  peninsula  and  the  Gulf,  synonymous  with/to
atheism, Marxism,  socialism,  nationalism,  Mao  Tze  Tong,
Fidel Castro, George Habash, Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi. . . But in
the  Farsi   speaking  regions,   the  word   revolution  is
associated   with    Mohammed,   (PBUH)   Ali,   Al-Hussein,
Al_Afghani, Hasan  Al Banna,  Sayyed Qutb, and Imam Khumeini
among others. Here we are talking about the sons of what may
be called  the general Islamic movement. At this juncture, I
cannot but  recall what  Malik  ben  Nabi  had  continuously
cautioned against, that is the stigmatizing of revolution in
the Muslim  Arab mind.  he was afraid of what is now - and I
say this  with pity - the policy of some decision-makers who
label themselves `Islamists'.
############################ ANNOUNCMENTS ################################
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*** This section is open for posting announcements for the
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Medical Doctors Relief & Development(MDRD), a voluntary,  
non-profit organization is seeking the support of members and 
volunteers who are willing to provide medical relief and
set up development operations in the poor countries of the world.
For more information, please contact Dr. Mohammad Amjad Alvi,
   1530 Albion Rd. Rexdale, Ont. Canada, M9V 1B4.
    Tel. (416) 240-0570, Fax (416) 240-1728
________________
THE ASSOCIATION OF ISLAMIC COMMUNITY GAZI HUSREV-BEG, has set up a
special service to support the struggle in Bosnia.
To find out how to contribute to this effort please contact:

ASSOCIATION OF ISLAMIC COMMUNITY GAZI HUSREV-BEG
[Bosnia-Hercegovina F.]
4146 DUNDAS STREET WEST, ETOBICOKE, ONTARIO M8X 1X3, CANADA

PHONE: (416) 233-5967  FAX: (416) 237-0656
_________
The Third Annual Islamic week will be held from Oct. 12th - 21st
at the Univesity of Washington. The program consists of:
Islamic art and books display, Panel discussions, and lectures.
Imam Mohammed H. Asi will be in Seattle on Oct. 16th in Sha' Allah. 
For more information contact the Union.
-----------
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
<On the anniversary of the mostly blessed birth of holy prophet Muhammad (S) 
and the week of Unity, and coincided with the ongoing suffering of Muslim 
Ummah around the Globe, the Muslim community in Los Angeles area holds an 
evening program on     
                      ISLAMIC UNITY AND ITS REALIZATION
which includes:

* Lectures:   1. "Unity in Prophet Muhammad's View" by Hujjatol-Islam 
                 Mousavi, Imam of Ja'faria Hall;
              2. "Unity and Islamic Government" by Br. Javaid Syed, Lecturer 
                 in Government; 

* Presentations on the current situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Lebonan;
* Congregational Prayers; * Book Fair;

TIME: Saturday, Sept. 12, 1992.
PLACE: University of Southern California, Hancock Auditorium.

     For further information call: (213) 960-5073, or write to
MSA(PSG)-LA, P.O.Box 4884, Downey, CA 90241.>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
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