Khalid Hassen’s Mother passed away in Zimbabwe on Sunday morning 3 July 2005.
On behalf of everyone associated with Crescents of Brisbane we wish to extend our condolences to the Hassen family.
May Allah (SWT) grant the Marhooma forgiveness and Janaat-ul-Firdous, inshaAllah.
CresWalk Loses out to NSW Eid Fair
The first Australian Muslim Achievement Awards were presented last Friday at a ceremony held in Sydney. The winners were:
Muslim Woman of the Year:
Silma Ihram Muslim Man of the Year:Sh Tajeddine El Hilaly
Muslim Youth of the Year: Bahije Mawas Muslim Sportsperson of the Year: Khadija Baladjam Muslim Business of the Year: Muslim Community Co-operative Australia (MCCA) Muslim Event of the Year: Multicultural Eid Festival Foundation & Fair Muslim Media Outlet of the Year: IslamicSydney.com/MuslimVillage.net
Kemal Omar, who was one of three who traveled down to Sydney to represent Crescents of Brisbane, had this to say about the 3-day event:
The Muslim Achievement Awards evening was hosted by the Mission of Hope. As most of you are already aware COB was nominated in the finals of the Muslim Event of the Year category. And glad we were to be there! What an uplifting evening to see Muslims doing something for themselves and moreso recognizing one another’s achievements.
In my book, this signals a change in an era where Muslims only seem to be condemning one another over issues that are almost insignificant in comparison to the challenges we face in these times in the countries that we live.
For those of use living in Australia we are accustomed to the term mate! But still somehow we feel it somewhat of an “Aussie” concept. At the awards evening that night I could not help but smile wryly within myself when it dawned on me. This is NOT a concept that should be alien to us. Islam stresses the concept of brotherhood. Translated loosely this could mean Islamic mate-ship. This is indeed what mate-ship is. And we were proud to be a part of it!
The function was held at the Orion centre in Bankstown catering for approximately 300 people. Among the guests were the local Mayor and an Australian Anti-Drug campaign representative, both who were highly complimentary of the efforts of MoH. The entrees comprised an array of Lebanese salads and bread. Whilst we were preparing ourselves for a sumptuous Middle Eastern main course we were greeted with a rather dull English type Chicken and Veggies. Tasty though it was, I was given to thinking that maybe they were taking this multi-cultural thing too seriously!!!
Our raison d’etre for being there did unfortunately not materialize as we had hoped . The event of the year category went to an organization calling themselves MEFF – Multicultural Eid Festival and Fair. These folks organize Eid functions for some 20,000 – 30,000 people at one time.
Their festivals include general and food stalls. Food from many cultures and countries is available at these functions. The variety of food at MEFF is enormous!
Another unfortunate fact was that there was no award for the three best dressed muchachos!!!!
Cos’ COB would definitely have taken that award.
About MoH
The Mission of Hope organization is a not for profit, non-sectarian, community organization with a focus on health and community welfare sensitized to the needs of the Muslim population. From what we gather, this organization is driven primarily by women. They are tackling issues that have long plagued migrant communities all over the world.
Some of the successful programs initiated by MoH thus far include;
The Fatiha project:- This is a drug awareness and prevention program that is implemented with an Islamic cultural perspective. MoH has recognized the support and contribution made by mainstream health and welfare organizations for their contributions in this regard. Counseling and Psychology services:- MoH provide a counseling service through modern recognized counseling techniques, that is acknowledged by Medicare. Hayaat Line:- Hayaat (Life) Line is a service that will be started soon inshallah that will provide the same essential services provided by Lifeline Australia. In fact negotiations are underway to have a two way agreement to share infrastructure and resources between the two organizations.
Some other future projects
MoH parenting Classes
MoH positive change program for men
MoH womens empowerment and Support group
Moh family planning education
Positive Muslims Australia
All in all MoH deserve a for their efforts. I am sure our local community could take a leaf out of their book and so we will be dealing with them a lot more often in the future.
Sheikh Moola's Lecture Tour Ends on a High
Sheikh Sulaiman Moola of South Africa delivered a series of well-supported lectures starting in Perth, then in Sydney and ending in Brisbane last week. Those who attended the talks in Brisbane found them particularly informative and inspirational. The last lecture at the Kuraby Masjid was attended by a capacity crowd that spilled into the balconies.
Several people need to be acknowledged for making the tour a success, namely, ZunaidChenia for arranging the programme and accompanying the Sheikh from South Africa; and MehmoodNathie, TwiggySurtie and YusufMeer for organizing the venues and itinerary.
Most of the lectures delivered in Brisbane will be available on a 6 set Audio CD pack at a cost of A$30.
If you wish to purchase the CD set you can do so by contacting Twiggy Surtie on 0411 172 786.
The venues and dates of the 6 Lectures are as follows:
1. Kuraby -Thurs - 30/06/2005
2a.Buranda -Sat - 02/07/2005
2b.Buranda -Sat - 02/07/2005
3. Kuraby -Sun - 03/07/2005
4. Kuraby -Mon -04/07/2005
5. Holland Park -Tues -05/07/2005
Girl Probes PlayStation and Gives it the 'Thumbs Down'
A 13-year-old girl has become the youngest author to be published in South Africa's main medical journal for her research on "PlayStation thumb".
Safura Abdool Karim interviewed 120 of her former schoolmates for a science project about whether they suffered problems after playing computer games.
Symptoms of "PlayStation Thumb" include blisters numbness and tingling, mainly in the thumb, she wrote.
She said the condition is similar to Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
"Although RSI is not new, in the past it occurred mainly among adults," she said.
"Today computers and computer games are creating new medical problems, such as PlayStation thumb, which are becoming common in children."
South African Medical Journal's deputy editor, Professor JP van Niekerk, said Ms Karim's work would be listed on the Index Medicus, an international registry of medico-scientific articles, "so the world can see this and cite it".
"I think it's a jolly good article. It was accepted on merit, but we also thought it was great fun," he said.
Her study found that 28 of the 60 boys and 17 of the 60 girls she spoke to played regularly.
Of these, eight boys and seven girls complained of symptoms such as redness, tingling and blisters.
Ms Karim said she had not seen the journal yet, "but I was really happy to hear it had been accepted".
She said she herself did not own a PlayStation because they were a "waste of time". "Each time I have thought how can people play on this for hours because to me its capacity of entertainment is rather limited."
Thanks Safura. Now what do I do with the PS2 I got two weeks ago for my 26th Wedding Anniversary?
Brick Lane
Bennie Boekwurm picked up a book entitled Brick Lane at a Sheffied (UK) store for a few pounds and found it exceedingly hard to put down, to the extent that most of the bus trips in and around the Peak Districts and the two hour tilt train journey to London were spent immersed in the lives of Nazneen, Razia, Karim and Chanu (the central characters in the book).
Written by local British writer, Monica Ali, this book of fiction chronicles the story of a young 18-year old Bangladeshi village girl brought to live our her life in an arranged marriage in a block of flats in London's East End in the late 60s. It is a detailed and fascinating glimpse into British Bengali culture and the trials and tribulations of a migrant community learning to cope with religious and racial prejudices stretching from the 70s and 80s when people were victimized for their skin colour to post 9/11 and the escalating problems of Islamophobia.
However, it is not all heavy and depressing reading. In fact far from it. The book has its fair share of humour and romanticism. There are several matters that readers with a Muslim and 'Asian' background can readily identify with ranging from frequent references to the Quran and Hadiths to packing leftover dhal and rice into Tuppaware containers for later use.
On arriving in London Bennie took the London underground tube and sought out the street in question to get a sense of the place.
Brick Lane is, as the book so vividly and accurately describes, a long, long street that is littered with Bengalis, and Bengali restaurants, shops and houses.
There is a park at the end of Brick Lane named after Altab Ali, a Bengali man who was stabbed to death by racists in 1978.
His was one of eight racist murders that year. 10,000 Bengalis marched from Whitechapel to Whitehall in protest.
Now things look and feel so much different than it must have been then.
There is a vibrant, inviting 'touristy' feel to the 'Curry Mile'. Women, young and old, walk and drive on the streets dressed in hijabs and burquahs with a quiet self-assurance and confidence that you would find hard-pressed to encounter in many other Western countries.
Black trousered waiters stand outside their restaurants and do a hard-sell with a persistence that would have put any Bangalore-based tele-saleperson to shame. Sweetmeat stores decked with huge pyramids of brightly coloured ladoos and burfis and pandas are clinically clean and modern in appearance.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Australian Parliament House (Series continuation)
(or Know Your Government 101)
What is a Parliamentary Committee?
A parliamentary committee is a group of Members or Senators appointed by one or both Houses of Parliament to undertake certain specified tasks.
They have both government and non-government Members on them and have considerable powers to undertake work on behalf of the Parliament.
Parliamentary Committees have extensive powers to call for people and documents to come before them. They can investigate questions of government administration and service delivery. Committees may call the Government or the public service to account for their actions and ask them to explain or justify administrative decisions.
In a sense committees take Parliament to the people and allow direct contact between members of the public and groups of Members of the House. Because they can travel extensively throughout Australia and have flexible procedures they provide opportunities for people to have their say on the issues being investigated. By simply undertaking an inquiry a committee may promote public debate on the subject at issue.
Types of committees exist for various purposes. For example, the Standing committees are committees appointed for the life of a Parliament and they are usually re-established in successive Parliaments (that is, after each election). They have a continuing role, while Select committees are appointed as the need arises, for a specific purpose, and thus have a more limited life which is normally specified when the committee is established. Once a select committee has carried out its investigation and presented its final report, it ceases to exist. Joint committees, on the other hand, draw their membership from, and report to,
both Houses of Parliament, enabling Members and Senators to work together on the same matter.
The Fastest Indian on Wheels!
If you don't know who he is then get acquainted with him now. In February at Silverstone, Narain Karthikeyan made history in the annals of Indian motor sports by becoming the first Indian to officially test a Formula One car.
Narain's helmet featured the Indian tri-colour for the first time on a Formula One helmet, and the logos of Tata Motors and Speed.
He took 15th position in the Australian Grand Prix in March this year. Presently he drives for Jordan F1 Grand Prix Team.
(Australian Grand Prix, March 2005)
Origins of Islam in Australia (Series continuation)
From the 1970s onwards, there was a significant shift in the government’s attitude towards immigration. Instead of trying to make new Australians ‘assimilate’ and forgo their unique cultural identities, the government became more accommodating and tolerant of differences by adopting a policy of ‘multiculturalism’.
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, Muslims from more than sixty countries had settled in Australia. While a very large number of them come from Turkey and Lebanon, there are Muslims from Indonesia, Bosnia, Iran, Fiji, Albania, Sudan, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, among others.
Despite the occasional outspoken politician who criticizes multiculturalism, broad sections of Australians have acknowledged and welcomed the contributions made by recent immigrants. Muslim immigrants have become a part of developing Australia’s culture, economy and religious knowledge.
Source: Muslim Australians:THEIR BELIEFS, PRACTICES AND INSTITUTIONS
Assalaamu-alaikum
I finally opened my mail today and was truly happy to find such an interesting puzzle. I am a keen puzzle enthusiast, in fact, I recently finished a rubik's cube. I am quite sure that there are many other puzzle enthusiasts reading the CCN, who have probably sent in their solutions for the sodoku puzzle, so I am also sure that there already is a winner. I just decided to 'ave a go, and send my solution in. The solution is attached to this email.
Thank you,
Faaiza Elias
[EDITOR] Well done, Faaiza! Consider yourself well and truly inducted into CCN's Puzzle Nuts Hall of Fame. For those interested in Faaiza's solution you can download it here.
If readers would like CCN to provide sodukus in our newsletter for you to solve please let us know. Remember it only takes two requests to constitute an overwhelming demand in our books .
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Kemal Omar, who was one of three who traveled down to Sydney to represent Crescents of Brisbane, had this to say about the 3-day event:
On arriving in London Bennie took the London underground tube and sought out the street in question to get a sense of the place. 
The Fastest Indian on Wheels!
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