Today (Sunday, 9 February) Victims of War will be holding a fundraising lunch at Svoboda Park, Beenleigh Rd, Kuraby.

 

All proceeds will go to help build an orphanage in Afghanistan.

 

The price of the $15 ticket includes four Afghani seekh kebabs with rice, a drink, salad and bread.

For more information call Qasim Sayed (0424 692 841) or Mohammed Yusuf (0450 908 786)

 

Muhammad Sajjad Asim (pictured above), who sued Edinburgh Central Mosque for breach of contract, said many imams are not paid the minimum wage, are not given holidays, are expected to supplement their pay with benefits, and sometimes given accommodation that is no more than a rolled-up mat in a corner of the mosque.

When Asim was recruited to the post of imam at the Edinburgh mosque from Pakistan, he found himself working seven days a week without holidays, and was allowed no parental leave when one of his children was born – all for below a rate of the minimum wage, and for less cash than he had been promised.

He was also caught in the crossfire of in-fighting and power play between factions in the mosque – which was originally set up by Pakistanis, but funded by Saudis. He was blamed for spreading slanderous rumours, which he always denied. One mosque-goer even threatened to cut his throat. Police installed a panic button in his home.

Imams in the UK are frequently recruited from overseas. Asim said this is partly because Britons would not accept the conditions: “Instead they bring in other people who are unaware of the system. Then these people work five years as a slave while they wait to get their leave to remain [in the UK].”

Asim had been working as a Justice of the High Court and imam in the Punjab province, near Lahore in Pakistan, before he came to Edinburgh, after being offered the role while attending a conference in Birmingham.

But what he experienced on taking up his position was not what he had been expecting. The initial contract had been for £300 a week, but he found after a few months there that he was being paid only £866 a month. He says he complained, but that nothing was done.

“I brought my family over,” said Asim. “But what I was paid was not sufficient for looking after them. They said they were going to provide full family accommodation, but they provided nothing. I couldn’t live on what they were paying me.” To fund his living expenses and rent, he sold his property in Pakistan.

A Jewish rabbi suggested he join a union. Asim found that as a “minister of religion”, he could join Unite, and became the first imam to do so. “They told me that they didn’t even have a category for imam. So they put me in the category ‘minister of religion: Church of Scotland’.”

However, Asim took no action against his employers until after he was dismissed by the mosque. He was accused of spreading rumours about a man and woman he saw in the library of the mosque together – a situation considered inappropriate by some Muslims. Despite repeatedly having denied this, he was targeted as the source. “The experience was extraordinarily stressful,” said Asim. One person threatened to cut his throat and kill his family.

Before he came to Scotland, Asim said, he knew nothing about unions. “With a union you have something behind you and you can fight with the mighty,” he said. With the help of Unite, he successfully sued Edinburgh Central Mosque for breach of contract.

Asim is now planning to work as an NHS and prison chaplain. He has already recruited five imams to join the union. “I suggested to many imams that they should join. When I did a course to be a Muslim chaplain, I met around 40 imams: the majority were in a similar situation to me. Most imams don’t join a union because they are not aware that they can.”

One mosque worker said: “Muhammad Sajjad Asim at least had a contract. There are imams from all over Britain without contracts, it’s the done thing in the Muslim community. People come over and they will do anything, cleaning toilets, teaching children, and they’re doing it because after five years they get their leave to remain and bring their family over. It’s a sacrifice they are willing to make. And the mosques know this.”

Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, a leading British imam, said: “There have been cases where imams have not been treated fairly and properly, though they are few. One case, however would be too many.”

He suggested that imams with such issues should turn to MINAB, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board – though this organization can only give advice, not legal help. But he added: “If an imam feels they are not successful with MINAB, then they should consider joining a union.”

One imam attached to a UK university confirmed that employment problems were not uncommon for imams, and mostly tended to arise in mosques that were not registered with the Home Office.

But he added: “This is not a problem confined to mosques. It’s also there in Hindu temples and Sikh gurdwaras.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Contracts of employment for imams in Scottish mosques are a matter for individual mosques and imams.”

The Sunday Herald tried to contact Edinburgh Central Mosque, but no-one was available to speak.
 

Source: The Herald Scotland  

 

The Muslim Business Network (MBN) held a very successful session on networking during the week at the Brisbane Technology Park at which over 100 members attended.

 

The feedback was overwhelmingly in favour of similar high calibre and specialist presentations and MBN president, Mr Farouk Adam told CCN that he and his team were planning to host meetings of this standard more frequently.  

Rehana Bibi, editor-in-chief of Australian Muslim Times and co-conspirator in an interesting experiment on World Hijab Day with Trina McLellan.

What is it like to wear a hijab, the veil covering so widely worn by devout Muslim women? I’ve asked a friend this question on more than one occasion, along with: Isn’t it hot in warm weather? Doesn’t it constrict your movement? How do you keep it in place, especially in the wind? What’s its purpose? Do you feel obvious in it if you are in an unfamiliar place? Do you wear it day and night? How do you react to accusations of oppression or to media or publicly aired suspicions, speculation or insults about women who wear the hijab? You know, the sort of sticky beak inquisition that journalists are apt to launch into with little hesitation. My friend is a modern, working, well-educated mum with three youngsters who also happens to be the editor-in-chief of a successful community newspaper which once was state-based but recently has been relaunched, in print and online, to serve a national audience … plus she squeezes in time to contribute administrative management skills to her husband’s flourishing veterinary practice. (And they say to give urgent tasks to busy women.) I’ve come to learn that, regardless of how much she has on her plate, Rehana Bibi, above, always finds the time to dress stylishly yet modestly. We’ve known each other for a few years now and my admiration for her dedication and accomplishments have only grown over that time. Over that time she’s won national accolades for her work, most recently in the form of Australian Muslim Media Outlet of the year at the recent 2013 AMMA awards and, since then, an Australia Day appreciation certificate for her community work awarded by her local federal member, Graham Perrett MP.     Reporting4Work Blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Costume being sold in an Indooroopilly shopping centre in Brisbane. 

 

 

Photo courtesy of Mr Jeremy Jones

 

The 37th session of the Australian National Dialogue of Christians, Muslims and Jews took place in Sydney on 6 February.
 

“It was an informative, high-spirited and sometimes provocative discussion of ‘How do we love our neighbours?’,” wrote Mr Jeremy Jones.
 

“It was an opportunity to reflect on World Interfaith Week and other matters”.

Australian International NGOs affiliated with ACFID (the Australian Council of International Development) met with Andrew Goledzinowski, Assistant Secretary Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to discuss submissions from the NGO community regarding the renewal of the United Nations Mandate for Afghanistan.

 

"As Australia is the current Chair of the Security Council it can play a key role in working to ensure that the United Nations Mandate for Afghanistan has the resources to mitigate civilian casualties and work for the protection of children as well as protecting the rights of women and their participation in the peace process and ensuring that NGOs have access to communities which are in need of emergency and development assistance," the head of International Programmes for Islamic Relief Australia, Mr Fadlullah Wilmot (pictured third from the left) told CCN.
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"Islamic Relief is the only Australian Muslim NGO which is a member of ACFID the peak national body of Australian international NGOs".

Muslim community organisations in Britain have always been led by men. In the past this could be explained as a result of the patterns of Muslim migration to the UK or of imported South Asian cultural norms. But as Muslims in the UK have become more settled and as a British-born generation of ambitious, civically engaged Muslims have emerged community structures led by men only have seemed increasingly outdated. While there have been some promising steps, established Muslim organisations have a long way to go to reflect their constituencies.

 

The alphabet soup of Muslim community organisations have their roots in different transnational movements that arrived in the UK as early as the 1960s, each emphasising different theological trends and political approaches.

 

However, if there is one thing that they all have in common, it is they have been overwhelmingly run by older men. The image of the Muslim ‘community leader’ as a middle-aged Asian man has become so clichéd that it now has its own popular representation in the form of the cringe-worthy BBC sitcom, Citizen Khan.

Historically, this has been initially a product of circumstance, but it was also later justified by reference to socially conservative cultural norms and rigid theological interpretations. The first waves of immigration of Muslims to the UK consisted predominantly of men, and they were only later followed by their wives and families to eventually settle permanently. Consequently, the first forays into community organising were by default men-only projects.

 

However, as time went on and as communities became more established, Muslim organisations continued to be dominated by men. Culturally, there was the view that the woman’s domain was the home, and this was reflected in the fact that many mosques catered minimally if at all for female worshippers.

 

Thus it became conventional in Muslim organisations that engagement of women should be limited to ‘women’s issues’, such as family life, child rearing, and, at a stretch, education. Theologically-grounded arguments prohibiting women from assuming leadership roles were relied upon to justify this.
 

 

 

Publicspirit

 

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Khadijah Elshayyal has recently completed her PhD in the history of British Muslim identity politics at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Myth No. 4: Muslims will become a dominant group of cultural outsiders in the United States

Despite the hysterical rhetoric coming from Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann and their ilk, Muslims there are not only a very tiny group, but they are also one of the most integrated groups in the country - - especially if you consider that 69% of American Muslims are first-generation immigrants, and 71% of those immigrants arrived after 1990.

There are only 2.6 million Muslims in the United States today. By 2030, that number is likely to rise to 6.2 million (because Muslims are young and fertile) - - at which point Muslim will be 1.7% of the population, almost as numerous as Jews and Episcopalians.

Even though they’re new, American Muslims tend to be economically successful and highly educated. With 40% of them holding a college degree, they’re the second most educated group after Jews - - and far more educated than Americans in general, only 29% of whom have a degree.
   
 

Next week: Myth No. 5

 

(Sourced from Doug Saunders' The Myth of the Muslim Tide)

 

6. The Sawiris family $10bn ($11.2bn) Egypt    

There is no stopping this family. Just last week Naguib Sawiris announced plans to invest $1bn in Egypt next year, focusing on construction, real estate, agriculture and microfinance. Indeed ever since Onsi, the patriarch of the family handed over the reins to Naguib, his eldest son and two brothers Nassef and Samih, their fortunes have rocketed. They took over and expanded the Orascom conglomerate into a telecommunications, construction, hotel and development business. Naguib, 58, launched the first mobile operator in Egypt, Mobinil in 1998, was chairman of the telecoms firms Wind Telecom and Orascom and launched Koryolink, the first mobile operator in North Korea in 2008. Naguib turned to politics as a wave of protests swept Egypt overthrowing former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

 

 

NEXT WEEK: The Number 7 richest Arab in the world.
 

Source: ArabianBusiness

 

HOUSEHOLD GOODS WANTED

Al-Mustapha Institute of Brisbane has students who are living near the Institute and are in need of the following:

        - A washing machine (in good working order)
        - One single bed with a mattress

If you are able to assist in providing either of these items please phone Zarina (0422 433 074).

 

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TUITION SERVICES

 

 

Click image to enlarge