From: imnet2@max.u.washington.edu
Subject: ISLAMIC WORLD NEWS (21st)
Organization: 
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 05:41:50 GMT

********************************* NEWS UPDATE *************************

BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA
The ceasefire signed by Serbs, Croats and Bosnians in London on July
18 did not start at all. In fact, few people, especially those in
Sarajevo, had any illusions about it.
The Serbian fascists know that the Bosnians cannot match them in
weapons and the world will not intervene to stop the slaughter.
So the Serbs are busy killing thousands of innocent people.
It is one of the most incredible situations in which leaders of western
countries are coming up with extraordinary excuses not to do
anything.
The latest western concern is focused on the influx of refugees from
the former Yugoslav State. The arrival of large numbers of hungry
and ill-clothed people, many of them children and women, will interfere
with their rapacious lifestyle.
Clearly, the poor people of Bosnia-Hercegovina have to suffer a lot more.
If there is any lesson to be drawn from the tragedy of Bosnia-Hercegovina,
it is that Muslims can never trust the Europeans or the Americans.
The Bosnians acted exactly according to the requirements of the European
community, yet they find themselves completely abandoned to the tender
mercy of the Serbian fascists.

OCCUPIED PALESTINE
US secretary of State James Baker was so impressed with his meeting with
Yitzhak Rabin, the new Israeli prime minister, that he called upon the
Arabs to show more flexibility.
Baker's argument was that since Israel has slowed its illegal settlements
in the West Bank, the Arabs must make more concessions now. Baker also
hinted that Israel will now get the $10 billion loan guarantees that had
been withheld because of Shamir's stubborn refusal to comply with
US requests.
Baker was not disappointed. On July 20, Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian
spokesperson declared in Jerusalem, that the Palestinians were quite
satisfied with the slowdown in Israeli settlements construction. Also,
so long as the Israelis did not use American funds to build the
settlements, the Palestinians would be happy to attend the talks.
How is one to make out whether the Israelis are or are not using US
funds?
The secular Palestinians and the Arab regimes are so anxious to surrender
to Israel in order to appease the US that they are prepared to accept
any demands that the Americans make of them.
The Muslim Arab and Palestinian masses deserve better.

AFGHANISTAN
Two days of fighting between the Ittehad-e Islami and Hizb-e Wahdat
has left hundreds of people dead or wounded in Kabul.
The latest round of bloodletting started on July 19 in the western
and southern suburbs of Kabul.
Hospitals in the Afghan capital have reported hundreds of casualties
being brought in.
The Ittehad-e Islami is headed by Professor Abdul Rasoul Sayaf and is
a staunchly pro-Saudi party. The Hizb-e Wahdat is a coalition of
eight Shi'a groups and it is supported by Iran.
Observers, however, believe that the present round of fighting is not
instigated from the outside. The two groups are fighting simply to
secure a more advantageous position as groups vie for influence in
the chaotic situation.
According to recent reports from Tehran, Iran and Saudi Arabia are
working to mend diplomatic fences and the two countries' leaders may also
visit each other's capital, according to reports carried in "Tehran
Times".
Forces loyal to Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, the current interim
president, are meanwhile trying to collect weapons from the various groups
but it is a herculian task. On July 18 in a radio and television broadcast,
professor Rabbani appealed to all the groups to cooperate with government
forces and hand in their weapons. His appeal has unfortunately
been ignored.
The people of Kabul continue to suffer as a result of such fighting while
the government desperately tries to enforce some semblence of order.

INDIA
There is an uproar in the Indian parliament; the Allahabad High Court has
ordered the fanatic Hindus to stop their construction activity but
they have ignored all these developments.
Hindu fanatics, backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party that rules in the
state of Uttar Pradesh, are proceeding with building their illegal
temple on the site where the Babri Masjid currently stands.
The Indian high court has ordered that no alterations to the site be
made  until the court's investigations are complete.
The Hindu fanatics have completely ignore the court order. The Central
government in Delhi has only one choice: it must either use troops to
enforce the court order or face the prospect of wholesale violations
of the Indian constitution.
For the estimate 150 million Muslims of India, the message is clear: there
is no hope for them to get any justice from any institution in India.
The whole notion of India as a democracy and a secular State lies in
shambles.  
*******COURTESY OF CRESCENT INTERNATIONAL, The newsmagazine of the global  
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EVENT SCAN ###############################################################

The Islamic Economy article will be continued on our next
editions in Sha' Allah.
-----------------------------------


BACKGROUND TO THE BABRI MASJID/RAM TEMPLE CONTROVERSY IN INDIA

On July 9, Hindu fanatics started construction work on a Hindu temple
at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, UP, India. The Hindus
are acting in contravention of a High Court order banning any
alterations to the existing site until an inquiry into the claims and
couter-claims is complete.
The Hindus' provocative move has created an uproar in the Indian
parliament. It has also raised the question that if Hindu fanatics can
disregard a court order with impunity, how can minorities in India have
any faith in the government or the judicial system.
What precisely is the problem?
The Hindus claim that the site where the 450-year-old Babri Masjid stands
today, is the birth-place of their mythical god, Rama, and that a temple
once stood there. The Babri Masjid, as its name suggests, was built by
the Mughal emperor, Babar who ruled India from 1526 to 1530. Clearly, the
Hindu claim means that the temple must have been destroyed before a masjid
was built there.
Is there any evidence to back this claim?
Four prominent Indian historians reported to the home ministry last year
that there is no historical or archaeological evidence to suggest that
any spot in Ayodhya was venerated as the birthplace of the Hindu mythical
god-king Rama before the 18th century. The "legend" that a temple on
the site of Rama's birth had been destroyed was first mooted in the
second half of the 18th century but was not claimed until the 19th
century.
Since the early 1980s, this campaign has been led by the Hindu religious
group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. It now has the backing of the Hindu
fascist party, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which has as its aim, the
conversion of all Muslims to Hinduism. Failing that, it demands their
expulsion from India. The BJP currently heads the state government in Uttar
Pradesh where Ayodhya is located.
Indian historians, including their two most important professional bodies,
the Indian History Congress and the Indian Council of Historical Research,
categorically refute the Rama temple as mere "myth" or that there is any
historical or scientific evidence to prove that the Babri Masjid stands
on the site of a demolished temple.
Rama temple propagandists, however, insist that this is a matter of Hindu
BELIEF and thus not open to any historical probe or even judicial
investigation. It is almost like the belief of the Flat-earthers; no
amount of evidence can convince them that the earth is round.
Muslims, meanwhile, have reiterated their readiness to accept the
judgement of the high court looking into the case.
After the bloody events of October 1990, when Hindu fanatics tried to
storm and demolish the mosque, then prime minister V P Singh's government
collapsed because the BJP withdrew its support from him in parliament.
The new government headed by Chandra Shekhar, endeavoured to mediate
between Muslim and Hindu leaders in talks convened by the home ministry
but reached no solution.
After the last round of talks between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the
All-India Masjid Action Committee, the home ministry ordered experts from
each side to submit reports to the government. That was in January 1991.
The Muslims sought a six-week period in which to prepare and submit their
report. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad objected to this time period.
The Muslims, however, submitted their report, the Hindus have done
no such thing, insisting instead that their position is based on their
belief.
The Indian government, too, is not playing it straight. For
instance, it has refused to make available the full report of professor
B. B. Lal's excavations in Ayodhya conducted a few years ago. He concluded
that the present-day Ayodhya is not linked to the legendary pre-historic
capital of Rama.
On May 13, 1991, the four prominent Indian historians submitted their
independent report. The four included: professor R S Sharma, former chairman
of the Indian Council of Historical Research, professor Suraj Bhan, head
of archaeology at the University of Kurukshetra, professor Athar Ali,
formerly of Aligarh Muslim University, and professor D N Jha of
Delhi University.
In their 36-page report, these experts pointed out that in A. Fuhrer's
1891 list of monumental antiquities and inscriptions in the northeast
province and Oudh [in India], he designated the Babri Masjid as a
class II monument. He said that it was "in the possession of private
bodies and individuals" and suggested that it be saved from
"further decay".
The Babri Masjid was a protected monument under the Ancient Monument Act
of 1904, re-legislated in 1958. As such it is part of the country's common
national heritage which "under law, the government must save and preserve
as a fully protected monument."
The historians and archaeologists maintain that the mosque is a
"significant example of Sharqi architecture." As it was built nearly
450 years ago, it is the duty of the government to protect and preserve
it. They maintain that a country is judged by how it treats its past and
that if India has any love for its cultural heritage and "if we have
any respect for historical facts and if we want to uphold the law", the
monument must be preserved.
The rumour that a temple on the site had been destroyed spread only after
1890. It became immersed in the progressive reconstruction of "imagined
history" based on faith rather than facts, the report concludes and asks,
should the people of India be carried away by "dubious evidence" presented
by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to support its case?
The historians quote Francis Buchanan who visited Ayodhya in 1810 and
recorded legends that temples in the area had been destroyed by Mughal
emperor Aurangzeb. He commented that this was obviously "ill-founded"
since the inscription on the mosque clearly shows that it was built five
generations before Aurangzeb's time [Babar ruled India from 1526 to 1530;
Aurangzeb ruled from 1658 to 1707].
For a full 220 years after the construction of the Babri Masjid, no
description of Ayodhya mentioned that it was the precise site of Rama's
birth or that a holy structure or temple at the spot had been destroyed.
Both Hindus and Muslims of that period supported this evidence and
Europeans recorded the same observations.
Between 1695 and 1696, Sujan Rai Bhandari completed his work titled
"Khulasatul Tawarikh" in which he concentrated on holy places. When
referring to Mathura, he mentioned that its temple of Keshav Raj had been
destroyed by Aurangzeb who had built a mosque in its place. But his
account of Ayodhya does not refer to any destroyed temple although he
mentions Rama's legend associated with the city.
The historians have also pointed out that the "Skanda Purana" mentions
that Rama's ashes were buried at the spot in Ayodhya known as Swarga Dwara,
but does not mention the exact spot of his birth.
Within 50 years of the construction of the Babri Masjid, Tulidas, a famous
Hindu historian, wrote his celebrated "Rama chartmanas", the story of
Ramayana, in Hindi. He would surely have grieved over the destruction of
a temple dedicated to Rama if it had happened barely a generation
earlier.
His silence suggests that no such event had ever taken place.
The report dismissed the various assertions of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
and the "imagined history" that black stone columns from the destroyed
temple were used in building the mosque. Despite several reminders to
the government, professor Lal's report on the Ayodhya excavations were
not produced for the historians, who criticized this failure.
The historians came to four broad conclusions in their report:
1: No evidence exists in the texts of evidence that before the 16th century
   (and indeed before the 18th century), any veneration was attached
   to any spot in Ayodhya for being the birthplace or site of Rama.
2: There are no grounds for supposing that a Rama temple, or any temple
   for that matter, existed at the site where the masjid was built in
   1528-1529.
3: The "legend" that the Babri Masjid occupied the site of Rama's birth
   did not arise until the late 18th century; that a temple was destroyed
   to build a masjid was not asserted until the beginning of the 19th
   century.
4: The "full-blown legend" of the destruction of the temple at the site of
   Rama's birth and "Siti Ki Rasoi" appeared as late as the 1850s.

It is interesting to note that at least a thousand temples in Ayodhya
are already consecrated to Rama. Three of them even claim to be on the
site where Rama was allegedly born.
Surely even a Hindu god cannot be born in three different places all
at once?
Tell this to the Hindu fanatics who are bent on destroying the Babri
Masjid. They want more; they have 3,000 other mosques targeted for
destruction throughout India.
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