New Trend Magazine (www.newtrendmag.org)

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Ramadan 26, 27, 1424

JAMAAT al-MUSLIMEEN'S SHOORA to MEET DECEMBER 6.

Inshallah, on December 6, 2003 the Central Shoora Committee of Jamaat al-Muslimeen will meet in Greensboro, North Carolina. Jamaat al-Muslimeen is a movement for human, civil and Islamic rights within the framework of law in America. It is an independent movement based on the Qur'an and the Example of the Prophet, pbuh.

The agenda of the meeting will be:
Outreach into Muslim communities to organize boycott of businesses which support Israel.
Political prisoners:
Practical help to safeguard their rights and to stop injustice against them.
Rights of Muslim women.
Bringing women into the decision making processes. Dealing with male control of mosques. Organizing opposition to spousal abuse.
Da'wah in America.
Inviting Muslims to accept the leadership of the Qur'an and the Prophet, pbuh. Taking Islam to Americans without apologetics and without pro-government theatrics. Key role of Da'wah among Hispanic/Latino people (particularly those from Mexico).
Media.
Response, rebuttal and expose of mainstream media. Development of independent Islamic media.
To support this effort, send donations to: Jamaat al-Muslimeen, P.O. Box 10881. For background and work done, visit: www.newtrendmag.org and click on Jamaat al-Muslimeen.
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GREAT MUSLIM THINKERS OF MODERN TIMES

PROBABLY THE GREATEST TASK OF MUSLIM THINKERS was to break the chains of mental slavery which many Muslims had accepted during colonial rule and which can still be seen on the minds of secular elites in Muslim lands. IQBAL started the process of the breaking of chains. Here is his self-image:
"Khera nah kur saka mujhe jalwa-e-danish-e-farang
Surma hay meri ankh ka khake-Madina-o-Najaf." [from Bal-e-Jibreel]
{'The pomp and show of Europe could not  dazzle me
because my eyes are kohled with the dust of Madina and Najaf.'}
The great thinkers attacked the idols of the West and broke the chains the West had put on many Muslim intellectuals. This distinct purpose helps to explain why supporters of the West [Pakistani secularists for instance] hate Maulana Maudoodi. He understook the tremendous task of demolition of the western idols in a systematic, thorough, unrelenting and ongoing process. Here is the erudite Maulana's self-image:

"When I began to publish Tarjuman ul Qur'an from Hyderabad in 1932, the plan of action I had in mind was that I should first break the hold which western culture and ideas had come to acquire over the Muslim intelligentsia and to instill in them the fact that ISLAM HAS ITS OWN CODE OF LIFE, ITS OWN CULTURE, ITS OWN POLITICAL and ECONOMIC system and a philosophy and an educational system which are ALL SUPERIOR TO ANYTHING THAT WESTERN CIVILIZATION COULD OFFER. I want to rid Muslims of the erronious notion that they need to borrow from others in the matter of culture and civilization. I wanted to convince them that the Islamic system was far superior to any in the world. I wished to make the Muslims aware, by critical analysis, of the weaknesses and shortcomings of the Westen system which they held in such awe." [Sayyid Maudoodi in THE CRITERION, Nov-Dec. 1970 issue. THE CRITERION was founded in Karachi by Kaukab Siddique in 1965.]

Twenty years after Maudoodi, in Egypt, Syed Qutb looked at the colonial minds of westernized Arabs and levelled a devastating attack on their thinking. He noticed with distaste that the Muslim intellectuals were importing foreign ideologies with less attention than they paid even to the import of industrial products. SYED QUTB wrote:

"...in industrial importing we first examine the goods which are already on our markets, and we estimate our own ability to produce them. But when it is a matter of importing principles and customs and laws, we do no such thing; we continually cast aside all our own spiritual heritage, all our intellectual endowment, and all the solutions which might well be revealed by a glance at these; we cast aside our own fundamental principles and doctrines, and we bring in those of democracy, or socialism, or communism." [Social Justice in Islam.]

WITH IMAM KHOMEINI came the concept of the ISLAMIC MASSES confronting U.S. imperialism and defeating it through self-sacrifice. At Zaleh Square in Tehran, the daughters of Islam offered flowers to the Shah's troops who were shooting them down. As the ocean of Muslims moved through the city, the Shah's army fled seeing that it would have to kill everyone to defeat the return of the Imam.

Then came the era of JIHAD. A man with powerful spiritual eyes, but no physical sight, recited the verses of the armed struggle, the duty to fight in Allah's way. DR. OMAR 'ABDEL RAHMAN WARMED THE BLOOD OF THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE. The Muslim Brotherhood, with the exception of Al-Banna and Syed Qutb and a few others, had become sterile talkers, ivory tower intellectuals, unable to come up with the concept of Jihad in its totality. The Shaikh brought it all together: that the heart of the Qur'an is Jihad. The heart of the ARAB WORLD is Egypt. Hence the Shaikh is buried alive in an American prison in Colorado even though he had not taught war against America. He had only brought alive the original concept of Jihad.
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2003-12-01 Mon 19:06ct