International Stars play in local Brisbane
competition
Back L to R -
Abdul Manan, Shafqat Ahmad, Asim Ali,
Sabahat Mahmood
Front L to R - Hussain Dar, Asad Rauf, Aleem
Dar, Ali Dar
With the
international cricket season
starting this Thursday at
the Gabba, cricket buffs
were being treated to a
little bit of cricketing
superstardom on the
southside of Brisbane over
the weekend.
The number
one umpire in cricket
Aleem Dar and his
Pakistani counterpart
Asad Rauf, are both in
town to officiate at the
Gabba in the first test
between Australia and New
Zealand.
However they
also took the opportunity to
play in the local warehouse
competition turning out for
Macgregor on Saturday.
Dar is in
Brisbane with his family,
and he and his son Ali
played in a local match at
Tingalpa.
This is the
second time that Aleem Dar
has played for Macgregor,
and it is an opportunity he
relishes.
“I’ve always
played cricket, and I always
like to get back and have a
hit and bowl when I can,”
Dar said.
“Umpiring is
a very different set of
skills and I enjoy it
immensely, however when I
can grab a bat or ball and
have a go, that also keeps
me enjoying the game.”
Dar has
officially been rated the
number one umpire in the
world for the last three
consecutive seasons by the
International Cricket
Council (ICC).
Asad Rauf is
also on the elite umpire’s
panel and is considered a
top three umpire in the
world.
The two
umpires are being hosted by
Brisbane City Council LNP
candidate for Moorooka, Ms
Yasmin Khan, and her family.
Srebrenica Massacre
Parliamentary address by Graham
Perrett MP, Federal Member for Moreton
I
rise to support the motion
put forward by the member
for Melbourne Ports which
utilises the words of the
decision of the
International Court of
Justice. The Moreton
electorate is home to many
Bosnians who survived the
horrors of the war in former
Yugoslavia. As former
refugees they have resettled
to make a new life for their
families in Brisbane's
southern suburbs, a long way
from the violence that
shattered their lives in the
early 1990s.
Up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslims,
mostly men and boys, were
slaughtered in the
Srebrenica massacre over
five days of horror in July
1995. Thousands of women and
girls were removed from
their homes, raped and
assaulted by Serbian
soldiers, with lingering
life-shattering
consequences. Sixteen years
after the war the victims
are still slowly and
methodically being
identified through
painstaking DNA analysis.
In
Bosnia-Herzegovina more than
200,000 Bosnian Muslims were
systematically murdered. The
then US Assistant Secretary
of State, Richard Holbrooke,
called these acts 'the
greatest failure of the West
since the 1930s'. In
response, NATO forces began
bombing Bosnia‐Herzegovina
on 30 August 1995‐and that
is not that long ago.
Full Hansard record
Hollywood comes to Makkah
In welcoming
back the Hajjis and Hajjianis who
have returned from Makkah
and Medina we replay this
oldie but goodie:
MFC to the rescue of Special School pupil
Jaden
Dennis (pictured left
with Ms Janeth Deen) is
a young man who has spent
his whole life in and out of
hospital. He suffers from
P36 syndrome which is a
debilitating illness that
affects his whole body. He
often suffers from seizures.
His mother Tanya is his full
time career.
This is just one student who
attends the Holland Park
Special School which also
incorporates the Xavier
school for students with
major disabilities. There
are about twenty three
students in this centre.
The school is short of the
special equipment it needs
in its work with these
children. The Government
does not fund the equipment
they so desperately need.
The school's P & C raised
some of the funds for a
walking frame for the use of
the children. They were
short of some of the funds.
The Muslim Charitable
Foundation (MCF) supplied
the balance needed and the
school is now in the process
of ordering the frame.
Janeth Deen was given a tour
of the facilities when she
went to hand the cheque from
MCF over to the school. She
met the staff and children
at the centre. The school
has a beautiful environment
with caring staff who are
devoted to the children in
their care. They are from
all age groups and there are
two Muslim children amongst
their number.
It is not an easy task for
the parents to have to take
their children to the
school. They need special
equipment to move them in
and out of the school as
well as especially fitted
vehicles. Disability
equipment is highly priced
and there is only limited
funding from the government.
The parents have to struggle
to meet the costs.
MCF funds have helped
several disability families
who are struggling to supply
every day necessities for
their families as well as
for the disabled member of
their family.
Dizzying Dervishes give Brisbane audiences a
whirl of a time
The
Queensland Intercultural
Society and the Queensland
Education and Cultural
Foundation and the
soon-to-be-opened Resha
College in Algester hosted
some 300 people from a
number of different
communities to the Sufi
tradition of the Whirling
Dervishes and a Turkish
orchestra at the Logan
Entertainment Centre during
the week.
The
relentless and sustained
spinning of the dancers had
many of the uninitiated in
the audience in awe of the
ritual.
Meat for distribution
Muslim Aid
Malaysia contacted a few
Brisbane community
organizations this week to
help them distribute some 30
cartons of boneless beef
(over 800Kg in weight) that
would not fit into the
containers going to
Malaysia.
The animals
were slaughtered during the
recent qurban and is
being held at a Gympie
abattoir.
Imam Ahmad
Ghazaleh and Me Janeth Deen
are currently coordinating
the local distribution.
Bald Hills Fun Day
The Islamic
Society of Bald Hills (ISOBH)
will hold its Annual
Multicultural Event at
Masjid Taqwah (119 Telegraph
Rd, Bald Hills) on Sunday
December 4th.
The event will host
children's’ rides, food and
clothing stalls, sports
competitions,
henna/threading for ladies,
information booths and an
auction to name some of the
key activities.
The event gives an
opportunity for others to
visit the Mosque and the
local community, mingle with
its members, participate in
some fun activities, enjoy
some tasty food with the aim
of fostering understanding,
tolerance and acceptance by
connecting and building
bridges with the wider
community.
It is a whole day of
activities starting at 10 am
and finishing at 4 pm.
MBN and SEO
Mr Jaaved
Khatree and Mr Dan
Petrovic (pictured
left), company director
of Dejan SEO (http://dejanseo.com.au)
were the
keynote presenters at last
week's Muslim Business
Network (MBN) monthly
meeting.
Mr Khatree
spoke of the steps necessary
to get a business online and
Mr Petrovic explained the
strategies for improving a
website's Google rankings.
A door prize
of a search engine
optimization consultancy
session by Dejan SEO worth
$1500 went to a very lucky
member of the audience on
the night who tried hard to
conceal his obvious delight
at winning the prize.
Forde Fund Raiser
Members of the local Muslim
community attended a fund
raising dinner at the
Islamic College of Brisbane
for State independent
candidate, Mr David Forde.
Former
Federal Liberal Minister and
4BC radio talk back host,
Mr Gary Hardgrave was
the Master of Ceremonies and
Dr Mohamad Abdalla
delivered the keynote
address.
Retiring
Queensland Minister, Mr
Stephen Robertson, was
presented with a gift in
appreciation of his
contribution to the
community.
We (non-Muslims) are unknowingly being converted
to Islam, says Cowan MP Luke Simpkins
BY
eating
snags
from the
supermarket
on the
barbecue
this
summer,
you are
unknowingly
being
converted
to
Islam,
according
to
Federal
MP Luke
Simpkins.
In a speech
to Federal
Parliament
yesterday,
Mr Simpkins
accused meat
producers,
including
Harvey Beef,
Inghams and
Steggles of
“deceiving”
West
Australians
by not
labelling
their
products as
Halal food,
inmycommunity.com.au
reported.
“So when you
go to Coles,
Woolworths
or IGA, or
other
supermarkets,
you cannot
then
purchase the
meat for
your Aussie
BBQ without
the
influence of
this
minority
religion,”
he said.
“By having
Australians
unwittingly
eating Halal
food, then
we are all
one step
down the
path of
conversion,
and that is
a step we
should only
make with
full
knowledge
and not be
imposed upon
us
unknowingly.”
Turkey:
Islamic Women’s Magazine Sparks Debate over Role of Fashion
in Islam
A new Turkish
fashion magazine, featuring headscarf-clad
models on the cover, hopes to attract
stylish Muslim women, such as these women
sitting outside a mosque in central
Istanbul. “Âlâ” hit the shelves in July
2011, offering clothing advise, interviews
with Muslim designers and businesswomen,
travel tips and reporting (Photo: Jonathan
Lewis)
The Turkish women’s magazine Âlâ first gained notice in the
summer of 2011 by putting the most controversial piece of
fabric in Turkey, the Islamic headscarf, on its cover. Four
months later, Turkish secularists and traditional Muslims
alike are still debating: Can fashion and Islam comfortably
coexist?
The brainchild of advertising agency account executives
Mehmet Volkan Atay and Burak Birer, Âlâ (Beautiful
Lifestyle) targets Turkey’s growing number of observant
Muslim women with a monthly selection of clothing advice,
interviews with Muslim designers and businesswomen, travel
tips and feature stories. It claims that its circulation has
quadrupled to 40,000 copies since the first edition hit
newsstands last July, and is widely reported by Turkish
media already to have surpassed sales of Vogue and Elle.
But don’t tag it as an Islamic Vogue. Âlâ Art Director Esra
Sezis asserts that that the notion of Islamic fashion
contradicts the Islamic idea of women modestly covering
their bodies. “[The magazine] is only meant to be a helping
guide for conservative women -- where can they shop, what
clothes can they combine,’” Sezis said in an August 20
interview with the Turkish daily Sabah. “[I]n short, there
cannot be Islamic fashion; just details.”
In online social media forums, critics nonetheless claim
that the glossy, high-end monthly tries to “westernize the
idea of modest Islamic dress,” and tries to turn veiled
women into the prototype of Vogue-reading, spend-thrift
fashion victims; concepts contrary to Islamic ideals. The
magazine features photos of both professional models and
ordinary readers in Islamic garments.
“To try and squeeze modest Islamic dress into fashion
patterns is as absurd as trying to squeeze Islam into a
Western lifestyle”, writes journalist Aysegül Genç in the
monthly Genç Magazine. “If this magazine, already
contributing to ongoing degeneration, would like to
minimalize the damage it will cause, it has to think as much
about how to be a beautiful veiled girl as it has to find
answers to the question of how to be a veiled girl with a
personality.”
EURASIANET.org
Muslims
proud to be British? There's something to learn from the
surprise
Bemusement at the findings
of Muslim pride in Britain stems from stereotyping about
religious groups
The
finding in Demos's report A Place for Pride that 83% of
Muslims said they were proud to be a British citizen,
compared with the national average of 79%, has been met with
surprise in some parts of the press. Clearly many British
citizens have both a strong religious identity and a strong
national identity. Yet it also seems clear that many people
see these identities as mutually exclusive. Why is this the
case?
That 83% of Muslims are proud to be British does in fact
make sense. Many British Muslims come from families that
have sought the opportunity and refuge offered in this
country. The Demos report suggests that "People who are
religious are more likely to be patriotic than are those who
self-define as atheists or nonbelievers"; 88% of Anglicans
and Jews agreed that they were "proud to be a British
citizen". Many British Jews have a family history of refugee
status and it follows that this leads to a sense of pride in
their British identity. People with a strong religious
identity are also often part of a strong community, and
benefit from the co-operation and collective goodwill that
can come with this. Patriotism, the report suggests, isn't
only concerned with Queen and flag, but also with community
values.
The
surprise at
the findings
of Muslim
pride in
Britain is
rooted in a
prejudice
that leads
people to
believe that
it is
paradoxical
for someone
to hold both
their
religious
and national
identities
as
important.
There is a lot of
misinformation about the British Muslim community. In 2009
the Gallup Coexist Index found that only 36% of the British
public thought that British Muslims were "loyal to this
country" as opposed to 82% of the British Muslim community.
The surprise at the findings of Muslim pride in Britain is
rooted in a prejudice that leads people to believe that it
is paradoxical for someone to hold both their religious and
national identities as important. Lazy caricatures of Islam
as contradicting many of the rights and values that are seen
as quintessentially British – particularly freedom and
democracy – only exacerbate this problem.
So, how do we tackle the
prejudice that leads to this view? We must start by
challenging perceptions of faith groups that rely on broad
stereotypes, and instead provide people with opportunities
for meaningful engagement, where they can meet and learn
about each other as individuals. The report quotes a student
who participated in Three Faiths Forum's Undergraduate
ParliaMentors programme, which gives young people the
opportunity to work with students of different faiths and
non-religious beliefs on social action projects, and to be
mentored by MPs and peers.
The "people I worked with, neither of them had even met a
Jewish person before. I found it quite daunting but it was
good and it helped me in a way to understand who I am as
well as to know more about Islam and Christianity. In the
end, the things we sometimes fell out about were what we
were doing on the project – not God."
Lazy
caricatures
of Islam as
contradicting
many of the
rights and
values that
are seen as
quintessentially
British –
particularly
freedom and
democracy –
only
exacerbate
this
problem.
Finding out that the
difficulties that come with working with others are often
simply the usual interpersonal challenges is an important
part of seeing others as individuals, not just a Muslim,
Jew, atheist etc.
What we need are more opportunities for this humanising
process. If we can find these while people work together on
a social cause then this is all to the good. One of the
clear implications of the Demos research is that public
pride is linked closely with "social engagement,
interpersonal trust and volunteerism". If we embrace
opportunities to work with people of all faiths and beliefs
then we can start to overcome the prejudice that leads to
surprise that other people are also proud of Britain. We
will, in turn, also give ourselves more reasons for civic
pride.
The
BBC- A positive reflection on British madrassahs
Negative reporting on the
goings-on in madrassahs in the UK isn’t hard to come by.
It’s a breath of fresh air then to see an article on the BBC
Asian Network on the accelerating ‘modernisation’ of
madrassahs and the efforts being undertaken to reform their
method of teaching Islam to young British Muslims.
From observing Criminal Records Bureau checks and teaching
computer literacy to employing teaching staff who speak
English, madrassahs are adapting to cater for the
ever-changing needs of young British Muslims.
Mohammed Sarfaraz is one of the teachers working at the
Victoria Street Mosque in Manningham. He said: "It's
different to when we grew up when we could not understand
Urdu very well. In my class we all speak English as it is
the mother tongue of all the students.
"The benefits are that they learn quicker and they
remember more, and at the end of the day what they learn,
they can put to use in their everyday lives."
"Twelve-year-old Hamza used to go to another madrassa in
Bradford, where he was taught in Urdu. But his parents found
he was not learning anything, and moved him to Victor Street
mosque.
"I'm now doing good because I can understand my teacher,
what he's saying, I've grown up my whole life speaking
English and I can't really understand Urdu."
Shaykh
Abdul Wajid heads the teaching staff at the Victor Street
Mosque. He said: "Our syllabus
has changed and we teach our children through love. But it
is not only in the classroom as we organise sporting events
and take the kids out so they can form a better bond with
their teachers."
Spokesman for the Bradford Council of Mosques, Ishtiaq Ahmed
comments on the initiatives to ensure the safety and quality
of Mosques in the city, "Most of
the Imams and teachers have been Criminal Records
Bureau-checked, or this process is under way. We work
closely with safeguarding initiatives, but children being
slapped or harmed in anyway is not acceptable - children
should feel safe."
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should be sent by email to
ccn@crescentsofbrisbane.org for
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CCN Readers' Book Club: You are what you
read!
Would you like
to see the cover of your favourite book on our book shelves
below?
Using the
book club you can see what books fellow CCN readers
have on their shelves, what they are reading and
even what they, and others, think of them.
KB says: This is the best chicken
fettuccini I have tasted and many of my friends and family
have asked me for this recipe. Someone recently told me that
they added a few teaspoons of French mustard to this recipe
and it enhanced the flavouring. I haven't tried this yet but
if you do let me know if this is really so.
Chicken
and Fettuccini
Ingredients
1 cup chicken fillet cubed
1 tab olive oil
1 tab sesame seeds
1 tsp green chillies
1 tsp Garlic
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
250g fettuccini boiled in salted water until
al-dente
˝cup sour cream
Ľ cup fresh cream
Method
1.Cook chicken fillet in olive oil with the
green chillies, garlic, pepper, salt, and sesame
seeds until cooked but still moist.
2. Add boiled fettuccini
3. Fifteen mins before serving add fresh cream
and sour cream
4. Heat through and serve hot
All questions sent in
are published here anonymously and without any
references to the author of the question.
The CCN Chuckle
Jallaluddin
found out he was going to inherit a huge oil fortune when
his sickly father died, and so he decided he needed a woman
to enjoy it with.
So one evening he went
to a coffee shop where he spotted the most beautiful woman
he had ever seen.
Her natural beauty took
his breath away.
"I may look like just an
ordinary man," he said as he walked up to her, "but in just
a week or two my father will die, and I will inherit 20
million dollars. Your beauty has blown me away, would you
marry me?"
Impressed, the woman
took down Jallaluddin's details to set up a proposal.
Three days later... Jallaluddin
had a new stepmother.
The CCN
I find that the harder I
work, the more luck I seem
to have.
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Mo's
Handyman Services
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Additional contact:
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0433 531 593
Gabriel Hair Studio
Colour - Style - Shine.
Gabriel K hair studio is a boutique studio exclusively for
women. Gabriel K has over 20 years experience as a stylist
and uses Matrix as the professional range.
Australian Muslim Youth
Network (AMYN)
Find out about the
latest events, outings,
fun-days, soccer
tournaments, BBQs organised
by AMYN. Network with other
young Muslims on the
AMYN Forum
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readers may find interesting or relevant. Such notices are
often posted as received. Including such messages or
providing the details of such events does not necessarily
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CCN or Crescents of Brisbane Inc.
I
rise to support the motion
put forward by the member
for Melbourne Ports which
utilises the words of the
decision of the
International Court of
Justice. The Moreton
electorate is home to many
Bosnians who survived the
horrors of the war in former
Yugoslavia. As former
refugees they have resettled
to make a new life for their
families in Brisbane's
southern suburbs, a long way
from the violence that
shattered their lives in the
early 1990s.
Jaden
Dennis (pictured left
with Ms Janeth Deen) is
a young man who has spent
his whole life in and out of
hospital. He suffers from
P36 syndrome which is a
debilitating illness that
affects his whole body. He
often suffers from seizures.
His mother Tanya is his full
time career. 
The
Queensland Intercultural
Society and the Queensland
Education and Cultural
Foundation and the
soon-to-be-opened Resha
College in Algester hosted
some 300 people from a
number of different
communities to the Sufi
tradition of the Whirling
Dervishes and a Turkish
orchestra at the Logan
Entertainment Centre during
the week.
BY
eating
snags
from the
supermarket
on the
barbecue
this
summer,
you are
unknowingly
being
converted
to
Islam,
according
to
Federal
MP Luke
Simpkins.
The
finding in Demos's report A Place for Pride that 83% of
Muslims said they were proud to be a British citizen,
compared with the national average of 79%, has been met with
surprise in some parts of the press. Clearly many British
citizens have both a strong religious identity and a strong
national identity. Yet it also seems clear that many people
see these identities as mutually exclusive. Why is this the
case?
Shaykh
Abdul Wajid heads the teaching staff at the Victor Street
Mosque. He said: "Our syllabus
has changed and we teach our children through love. But it
is not only in the classroom as we organise sporting events
and take the kids out so they can form a better bond with
their teachers."
After at least 10mins of exercise the brain releases
chemicals which can help reduce anxiety and depression –
.jpg)
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our Wall
7
August 2011