I am pleased to see sanity return when it is appealed to.

Face book has been a good source to watch humans and return to sanity. Even the posts on Ramadan at Washington post in September, and the post at Dallas Morning News about Irving Mosque’s interfaith meeting…. looks like reason and demand for sanity puts a break on the right wingers. I will continue to experiment this as I have always believed that except the hard core right wingers, most people are open to reason and logic.

“No Nation Should be Divided In the Name of Race and Religion” Written by Kamlesh Chauhan copyright@1990 – http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=169785539140&id=1532101233&ref=mf

Gargi posted a whole lot of stuff, and glad she saw that reason to be with the reason. Among the same crowd, they all get excited, and if a few Muslims who are a mirror match to them get in, they get chewed out by the hawks. I walk in the same group and stay with what is right and just… it seems that people are made to be just, we just have to open the door for them.

Gargis’s post Kashmir Exclusive – at http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=169785539140&id=1532101233&ref=mf#/note.php?note_id=171881882459&ref=mf
has come to a grinding halt, when I asked people to focus on solutions. This link also refers to a previous post.

Mike Ghouse

I am glad to see every Muslim organization condemning it,
Every human should condemn this disgusting act and I do.

# # #

NASIM Foundation
North American Society of Indian Muslims)
(A 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization)
with compliments of DFW Aligarh Alumni and Friends

Saturday, October 31, 2009
Proceeds to support “NASIM Foundation” for Education Venue:

1) Janab Waseem Barelvi (Bareli, India).
2) Janab Meraj Faizabadi (Lucknow, India).
3) Janab Abbas Tabish, (Lahore, Pakistan).
4) Janab Tahir Faraz (Rampur, India).
5) Other North American Shora

Zohra Chisti read the Aligarh’s Tarana
and Nadir Durrani was the Muntazim of the Mushaira.
Several Dallas Poets participated as well.

Great Mushaera – Tahir Faraz’s poem on mother called “mayee” brought tears in every one’s eyes. Tahir’s poetry flows like my essays, reflecting wisdom of different faiths in his case, he compared the devotion of Sita and Lakshman and Ram’s banwas.

# # #

Tuesday Nov 3rd.
Nadir Durrani invited the same shora (poets) at his home and we had one of the best mehfils of Urdu Poetry.

Mike Ghouse

Freedom should be free

I was reading one of the posts on the Face book about Kashmir conflict, as usual a majority of the comments sought solutions, a few, spewed hatred. I have pondered over the discussions on conflicts like Gaza and the tragedy of her people. In both the cases, it is appalling to read the degree of degeneration of humanity between the few Pakistanis, Indians, Kashmiris on one hand, and Palestinians, Israelis and the Jews on the other hand.

The good news is only a fraction of the each population is ugly; the majority of them are good people, to which I might add, good for nothing. Evil persists because good people do nothing about it.

From the draft it became an article and is poste at: This column is available at:http://hatesermons.blogspot.com/2009/11/freedom-should-be-free.html

###

Tuesday, October 27 – 11:30-1:30 PM

The Dallas Morning news editors and staff Members met with the Muslim community members to understand the issues of the community in a series about different communities.

Diane Solis and Mike Ghouse led to the Irving location and invited about 20 members from the community representing a broad spectrum of individual Muslims and the Imam, including ten members of their staff.

Their initiative must be applauded as it brought hitherto un-discussed and un-resolved issues to the fore. I will be writing the key points and update it later this week.

More Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeghouse/sets/72157622676865606/show/

About twenty individuals attended “Dallas Morning News community initiative” dialogue.

Among the crew from the Dallas Morning News were deputy managing editor Leona Allen, senior writer Dianne Solis, assignment editors Mede Nix and Steve Harris. Among the writers were Dave Tarrant, Sherry Jacobson, Debbie Fleck, Sam Hodges, Karel Holloway, Katherine Leal Unmuth, Joe, Bryan and David.

Imam Zia Shaikh, Mike Ghouse, Nia McKay, Mohamed Elibiary, Rodwaan Saleh, Ahmed Yanouri, Mumtaz Rahemtullah, Mahmoud Egal and Adil Khan from the Muslim community.

The issues:

• Failure of reporting critical issues
• Why do we have to condemn terrorism – we didn’t do it
• Individual responsibility – for individual acts
• Stereo typing
• Islamic schools for Children vs. Public schools
• How are the kids faring
• Critical thinking – is this specific to Muslims or is too vague

Dallas news is appreciated for making the efforts to know the community, and for expressing the desire to be objective.

In September Lori Stahl of Dallas Morning news wrote about the interfaith meeting held at Irving Mosque and immediately it was attacked by the Neocons, my comments set a new tone of dialogue; of the 62 some comments, nearly half of them were my responses, and as a community, we appreciate the Morning news for allowing the links in the comments to address the issues raised.

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2009/09/islamic-center-of-irving-on-stereotypes.html

We also appreciate the News for dropping the prefixes and suffixes with the word Islam or Muslim in their editorials and some of the opinions. It is breath of fresh air not to place the blame on religion, but rather the culprits.

The issue of anonymity of the comments was raised and Leona Allen mentioned that it has been under discussion. Having to register with real verifiable names cuts down the hate comments, as accountability is presumed from it.

We hope the Morning news considers the following;

1. Educating the public over the long haul that individuals are to be blamed for their criminal acts and not their parents, siblings, kids, ethnicity, race, religion or nationality.

2. When reporting a crime, one must Google and find out if this crime is specific to the community or it a common issue with humanity. If a bad father kills his daughter for not wearing the Hijab, it would make sense to see how many fathers on that day or week have killed their daughters -is the issue disobedience from father’s point of view or the religion? Critical thinking is a must to prevent stereotyping and saving the misery of blaming and hating others.

3. A suggestion was made that only a certain people are to be listed as contacts who can speak about Islam. That is a naive and undemocratic thought; for every three Muslims there are five opinions and every Muslim should speak about his or her religion, let’s not define the religion from one point of view. Let the media be free to contact whom they wish.

4. If an issue erupts elsewhere in the world, the assumption that Muslims would be speaking for others is ridiculous; indeed, it should be looked as we differ as Republicans and Democrats on any given issue.

5. Muslims are as sick of robbery, theft, arson, drungs, gangs, violence,rapes, murders or terrorism as any one else is, to think otherwise is dumb.

I urge the other attendees to write their notes in the comments section, I am sure I have missed a lot of items, please complete it. This is not an article; it is just my unformatted note.

The event was capped off with a comment full of wisdom from Imam Zia Shaikh – he talked about the emphasis on education in Islam. The very first word revealed to the prophet was IQRA, read and recite, and following that several words are about education and learning.

Mike Ghouse
–

Sunday, October 25, 2009

It was a pleasure to share the Diwali greetings of peace and co-existence with the students at the DFW Hindu Temple this morning upon Dr. Hasmukh Shah’s invitation.

Dr. Shah is a retired heart surgeon and an educator in Hinduism. He is one of the founding members of the school at the Hindu temple and now the youth wing is operating successfully with a great curriculum.

Years ago when I started the talk show program “Wisdom of Religion, all the beautiful religions”; on the radio, it was an hour’s program for five days a week and ran for about two plus years. We have done a total of 700 hours on all traditions including Atheism and developing an attitude of inclusion, aka Pluralism. The first program was on Hinduism and it started with Dr. Hasmukh Shah.

I am pleased to have shared the following greeting along with a few additional notes about the significance of the day; the day Ram came out of exile honoring the rule of law, following the path of righteousness that Krishna talked about in the Bhagvad Gita. Also shared the essence of Greetings in different faiths and as usual they attendees repeated the greetings of every faith.

The greetings:

Friday, October 23, 2009

Dr. Ashis Brahma has been working with refugees in Chad, Darfur, Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. He was in Dallas on a informational tour sharing the suffering of people. Visit his site www.pghf.org/ In the Picture L-R Mike Ghouse, Dr. Ashis Brahma and Sulaiman Hemani at the Ismaili Center in Plano, Texas. (Picture: L-R, Mike Ghouse, Dr. Brahma and Sulaiman Hemani).

Saturday, October 23, 2009 10-4 PM

Dallas Peace Center retreat at Donna’s ranch near Possum Kingdom Lake/ Mineral Wells.

16 Board Members of Dallas Peace Center attended the session revisiting the vision and mission statements, going through strategic planning and draftin…g the goals for 2010.

David did a phenomenal job of moderating and accomplishing so much in less than six hours.

Saturday, October 23, 2009

It was a joy attending the annual Diwali Dinner at the D/FW Hindu Temple with Maini Saheb. I have been attending the Dinner for the last sixteen years except the last two due to my late wife Najma’s ill-health.

It was such a joy to see so many friends that I had not seen for a long time. The list is too long to write, but I have to mention my two sisters Vinoda and Damini. Vinoda came and told me how I got every one started on the interfaith prayers right after 9/11/2001. I saw Champa Vittala, but did not get a chance to say hello. Good to say hello to Dr. Hasmukh Shah, Manoj Patel, Ranna Jani, Raj Tanna, Suma and Dr. Kulkarni, Hari, Dr. Raj Gandhi, Sunder and Neelam Khuller, Harshika Bhatt, Kundan Sharma….. all the four Pujaris.

Kids performance was outstanding, as always good food.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Yvonne Ridley, a British Journalist shared her story of the Talibans capturing her, her fears and their respect for her as a woman. Sounds contradictory, but she tells the compelling story of how media projects the Taliban in a bad light showing incidents out of context….

I can see the Propaganda element of our media, but still have to verify about Talibans. It is like showing the evening news of Dallas as the reality of Dallas, where the 20 minutes are filled with rape, arson, murder, robbery and accidents. Which is speck of the truth in relation to the population of Dallas, but not the whole truth.

Yvonne was raised as an Anglican and was a sunday school teacher. Two years after being free in UK, she studied Quraan and chose to become a Muslim. The part that appealed to her most was the Justice aspect of Islam and I was pondering about it, as I wrote in the mission statement of the World Muslim Congress, if I were to define Islam in one word, it would be Justice. http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/WorldMuslimCongress/Articles/Mission-Statement.asp

Her story is a big lesson for those who are bent on missionizing and converting others. The kinder, gentler and respectful you are of other faiths and traditions, the greater the chances you have of winning them over. That reminds me of Dale Carnegies’s statement, “if you want to gather honey, don’t kick the beehive”.

I would be be happy to share about my faith and how it works for me. Each individual is responsibile for his or her own actions and beliefs, your faith is dear to you as my faith is dear to me, let’s learn to co-exist in peace.

She talked about Sharia as an instrument of Justice. Just this week, I attended the Texas Rule of law conference where the speakers repeated the inherent justice embeded in Sharia laws, to which I added the issue of implementation, just as we have sent several innocents to the Electric Chair in Texas, they have hanged several innocents and have been unjust to several. It is not the rule of law that is a problem in most cases, it is the implemenation.

Yvonne Ridley was sharing her story about her capture by the Talibans… she made a big point about the Talibans, when in Jail, she washed her underclothing and hung them on the clothes line to dry, the whole ministry was involved in telling her to remove and the reason they gave was that the bra would incite the men, it would tempt them and she had to remove the object of temptations from the clothes line that is in their sight outside the compound. She made a comment about their obsession about this rather than doing the foreign policy work.

My view is that each one of us is a pracitioner of Personal Sharia, i.e., how we pray, fast, pay zakat and perform our religous duties are derived through the Personal Sharia. However the Sharia that deals with the public, i.e., in relations to others, between you and I is governed by the Public Sharia, as I call it, and we don’t need to duplicate our existing civil laws (American in my case) with Sharia, as our civil laws are as just as the Sharia Laws. By the way, Sharia laws are not divine, they are the human interpretations of Qur’aan, written decades after the Prophet and it needs updating through Ijtihad; reflective discussions.

Dr. Pervaz Rahman had invited her to speak and was organized by Khalil Meek. She was here for a fundraiser for the Muslim Legal defense fund of America, defending the civil rights of Muslim Americans. MLFA actively worked in defending the Holy Land Foundation case as well as winning the Flying Imams case in tandem with CAIR.

Pictures of the event:http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeghouse/sets/72157622650011682/show/