comment
Dawud
Bone
THE ESSEnCE
have the potential to become. our respect for our fellow
oF HUMAnITY
God is exhorting Muslims to Muslims, rather it enhances
become the people that eve- it. We stand out as potential
ryone from every community leaders of our complex and
Does a boycott of Holocaust memorial Day
respects and trusts to lead multi-faceted society. So what
them forward. should we do now?
really show muslims to be a people of high
The Prophet Muhammad Daniel Barenboim the
principle or does it rather undermine their
was such a leader. He was famous Jewish conductor and
perceived capacity to lead a plural society?
called upon to lead the peo- pianist recently condemned
ple of Madinah because he the futile efforts made to
showed respect for all of God’s resolve the Israeli-Palestinian
It’s January again and along It occurred to me that when creation and his first ummah conflict by force. He asserted
with New Year’s resolu- we, as a Muslim community, was a pluralist and fractured that we must find a new way
tions and the joys of the make a stand on an issue of society. You may recall the forward “which allays fear,
winter gas bills comes the principle it is crucial that our incident that is documented acknowledges injustice, and
inevitable discussions target audience understands in the hadith in which the leads to the security of Israelis
over Holocaust Memorial our motivation and accepts Companions were surprised and Palestinians alike… which
Day (HMD) and whether it for what it is. There can be to see him stand up out of demands of all sides a com-
it should be supported or no doubt that there would respect for the bier of a Jew. mon responsibility: to ensure
boycotted by the Muslim have been outrage had MCB We cannot say for certain why equal rights and dignity to
community and its rep- not boycotted HMD in 2009, they were surprised; it might both peoples, and ensure the
resentatives such as the being so close as it was to the be simply because the man right of each person to tran-
Muslim Council of Britain Israeli action in Gaza and was not a Muslim, or it might scend the past and aspire to a
(MCB). the worsening plight of the be because of one of the recent future.”
In September, I began Palestinians. But what about conflicts that had taken place This is a truly Islamic mes-
teaching a course on ‘Muslim- the wider society? Many com- with the Jewish tribes, or it sage and one that should
Jewish relations’ at the Woolf mentators in the media saw might be both. What we do remind us that both of our
Institute of Abrahamic Faiths this as merely an excuse for know is that his response was communities are guided by
in Cambridge. Last week, Muslims to snub the suffer- to remind his Companions of God and contain right minded
one of our students gave an ing of the Jews in WWII and the humanity of the man who people who retain a sense of
insightful presentation on further evidence of the ‘anti- had passed away. compassion and justice. We
the topic of HMD. He was Semitism inherent in Islam’. When we show respect must take the initiative to heal
genuinely mystified at the fail- We are very fond of the for the suffering of others, the rifts in our fractured soci-
ure of Muslims to support it Qur’anic verse which states, which is how the wider com- ety through sincere words and
given that the national guid- “You are the best of peoples munity perceive participation actions that demonstrate love
ance and local practice here in evolved for mankind, enjoin- in HMD, it does not weaken and compassion for mankind.l
Cambridge has always been ing what is right, forbidding
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to highlight all the contempo- what is wrong, and believing “God is exhorting Muslims to become
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rary instances of Genocide. As in Allah.” But this is clearly
the people that everyone from every
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you can imagine, the subject not God’s definition of who b
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provoked a lively debate. we are, but rather of who we community respects and trusts.”
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The only real voyage
This Month in History A
rk
January, 1982 marks the
of discovery consists not in
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AnD I
lowest temperature ever
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seeking new landscapes, but
recorded in the UK of -27.2
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QUoTE... on
in having new eyes.
degrees Celsius in Braemer,
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Aberdeenshire. The wonders str
- Marcel Proust of global warming! i
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20 emel magazine |
www.emel.com
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