Muslims to look out for new moon
Prophet Muhammad is reported to have instructed the Muslims as follows:`Do not fast unless you see the crescent of Ramadan and do not give up fasting till you see the crescent of Shawwal.'
“But if the sky is overcast, count 30 days of Sha‘aban or Ramadan as the case may be,‘‘
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Czech Muslims apologise for ambassador's death, no protest
The planned protest action by the Czech extreme right National Party (NS) against Islamism did not take place in Brno Wednesday, NS first deputy chairman Jan Skacel told CTK after a meeting with representatives of the Brno mosque outside which the demonstration was to be held.
He said Muslims have apologised for the bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, in which Czech ambassador to Pakistan Ivo Zdarek died last weekend.
Skacel said, however, that "the National Party sticks to its negative stands on radical Islamism."
Brno Muslims expressed regret at Zdarek's death immediately after it. Today they repeated their stand to representatives of the National Party.
The police were on alert in connection with today's planned protest action, but there was no unrest.
Eventually, there were more journalists than police and National Party members outside the mosque.
He said Muslims have apologised for the bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, in which Czech ambassador to Pakistan Ivo Zdarek died last weekend.
Skacel said, however, that "the National Party sticks to its negative stands on radical Islamism."
Brno Muslims expressed regret at Zdarek's death immediately after it. Today they repeated their stand to representatives of the National Party.
The police were on alert in connection with today's planned protest action, but there was no unrest.
Eventually, there were more journalists than police and National Party members outside the mosque.
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India faced with home-grown terrorism
Five arrests made over the past two weeks in connection with the Sept. 13 bomb blasts here are forcing the country with the world's second largest Muslim population to acknowledge that it cannot blame every bomb attack solely on Pakistan. India is seeing a rise in home-grown terrorism.
The portrait of an Indian terrorist has long been a caricature: poor Indian Muslims indoctrinated in radical seminaries and funded by Pakistan, India's neighbor and longtime enemy. But two of the suspects arrested Wednesday were software engineers, one ran a hotel.
It suggests that Indian terrorism is not motivated by dire poverty alone, but also by the perception of systemic prejudice against Muslims here. This is a bitterly controversial idea in the Hindu-majority nation sensitive to claims of intolerance, but the arrests are creating a small window for India to consider it more deeply.
"The role of Pakistan-based terrorist groups cannot be minimized, but the involvement of local elements in recent blasts adds a new dimension to the terrorist threat," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said this month after the New Delhi bombings.
"It's not only about Pakistan – we can't afford to oversimplify anymore," says Swapna Kona Nayudu, a security analyst at the Center for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi. "We're going to have to look at the sociological fault lines."
These sociological fault lines do not appear to be grooming terrorists with global intentions or strong connections to Al Qaeda. Though an Indian bombed the Glasgow airport last year, Indian terrorism remains an inwardly focused phenomenon for now.
The group that claimed responsibility for the Delhi bombings, the "Indian Mujahideen" (IM), said the bombs were in response to police sweeps nationwide that indiscriminately arrested Muslims. Investigators in Mumbai (Bombay), where the arrests were made, pointed to Mohammed Sadiq Sheikh as the leader of the group. They say the software engineer formed the IM with Amir Raza, based in Pakistan, in 2005. The group claims involvement in recent bombings in Jaipur and the western state of Gujarat.
Though Indian authorities and experts still allege that Pakistan's intelligence agencies were involved, perhaps funding or guiding the IM, the police cast a picture of a distinctly Indian organization. All those killed, in custody, or implicated in the bombings come from one district in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. They sent their manifestos by e-mail to media outlets moments before the attacks.
"The one thing that the government can't avoid anymore is that there is a problem here," says Omair Ahmed, author of "Encounters," a book on militancy in India. "What that problem is, no one is willing to say."
He points to the findings of the Sachar Commission, a government-sponsored study released in 2006. It found that Muslims had slipped from middling status to the level of dalits – the group formerly known as "untouchables" – at the bottom of India's social and economic ladder. It cited the government's neglect of the Muslim community – in areas such as schooling, healthcare, and opportunity for government jobs – as a primary cause.
The portrait of an Indian terrorist has long been a caricature: poor Indian Muslims indoctrinated in radical seminaries and funded by Pakistan, India's neighbor and longtime enemy. But two of the suspects arrested Wednesday were software engineers, one ran a hotel.
It suggests that Indian terrorism is not motivated by dire poverty alone, but also by the perception of systemic prejudice against Muslims here. This is a bitterly controversial idea in the Hindu-majority nation sensitive to claims of intolerance, but the arrests are creating a small window for India to consider it more deeply.
"The role of Pakistan-based terrorist groups cannot be minimized, but the involvement of local elements in recent blasts adds a new dimension to the terrorist threat," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said this month after the New Delhi bombings.
"It's not only about Pakistan – we can't afford to oversimplify anymore," says Swapna Kona Nayudu, a security analyst at the Center for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi. "We're going to have to look at the sociological fault lines."
These sociological fault lines do not appear to be grooming terrorists with global intentions or strong connections to Al Qaeda. Though an Indian bombed the Glasgow airport last year, Indian terrorism remains an inwardly focused phenomenon for now.
The group that claimed responsibility for the Delhi bombings, the "Indian Mujahideen" (IM), said the bombs were in response to police sweeps nationwide that indiscriminately arrested Muslims. Investigators in Mumbai (Bombay), where the arrests were made, pointed to Mohammed Sadiq Sheikh as the leader of the group. They say the software engineer formed the IM with Amir Raza, based in Pakistan, in 2005. The group claims involvement in recent bombings in Jaipur and the western state of Gujarat.
Though Indian authorities and experts still allege that Pakistan's intelligence agencies were involved, perhaps funding or guiding the IM, the police cast a picture of a distinctly Indian organization. All those killed, in custody, or implicated in the bombings come from one district in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. They sent their manifestos by e-mail to media outlets moments before the attacks.
"The one thing that the government can't avoid anymore is that there is a problem here," says Omair Ahmed, author of "Encounters," a book on militancy in India. "What that problem is, no one is willing to say."
He points to the findings of the Sachar Commission, a government-sponsored study released in 2006. It found that Muslims had slipped from middling status to the level of dalits – the group formerly known as "untouchables" – at the bottom of India's social and economic ladder. It cited the government's neglect of the Muslim community – in areas such as schooling, healthcare, and opportunity for government jobs – as a primary cause.
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