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Facebook event for the rally can be found here.

 

 

 

Saturday 5 July

On Saturday 5 July Islamic Relief Australia in conjunction with the Somalian Community in Brisbane held a fundraising dinner for the Feed the Hungry Appeal at Michael’s Oriental.

 

Nearly $15,000 was raised and will purchase food packages during Ramadan for some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in Somalia and the Central African Republic.

The multi-cultural and multi-faith dinner was attended by local politicians, upcoming state candidates, leaders and members of Muslim and non-Muslim community groups including MCF, EIdFest, AMARAH, the Al-Nisa Youth Group, EMAN, UMB, the Somalian Sisters of Brisbane, Queensland African Communities Council (QACC) and Multicultural Development Association (MDA).
 

The short program featured Mr Fadullah Wilmot, Deputy CEO and Head of International Programs outlining the work of Islamic Relief throughout the world. In particular, he highlighted that in 30 years, Islamic Relief has served more than 92 Million people, 300,000 children have been educated, nearly 40,000 orphans have been sponsored and almost 3 million food packages have been distributed every Ramadan.

 

Find more information on Islamic Relief’s work in Somalia and for the most recent Ramadan food hamper distribution here and here.

Find information on Islamic Relief’s work in CAR here.

David Forde, the Independent Candidate for Stretton commented that “it was a very well organised event, along with… excellent presentation, not least the report on empowerment through education.”

The event was managed and organised by Susan Al-Maani, the Queensland fundraising and community relations manager, with the assistance of key leaders from the Somalian community.

 

Islamic Relief Australia would especially like to thank all the volunteers who gave so much of themselves to this event as well as the sponsors for their generosity: Dial a Local Doctor, Brisbane Diagnostics, Happy and Family Day Care, Motherly Love Day Care, Youngstar Day Care, Amani Day Care, Best Friend Family Day Care, United Hearts Family Day Care Scheme, GFTI: Training Growth and Success.

 

 

 

 

Saturday 12 July

On Saturday 12 July, Islamic Relief Australia organised an information and donation stall at Underwood Marketplace.

 

Face painting, henna and balloons drew a large crowd of people giving their zakat ul fitr, zakat as well as sadaqa.

 

All Proceeds from the stall will go to the Gaza Emergency Relief Appeal.

Islamic Relief Australia will have another stall next Saturday 19 July 9am-3pm at Underwood Marketplace. Come by and say Salams to Susan and the dedicated group of Islamic Relief volunteers.

For further information contact Susan Al-Maani on 0433 182 520

 

The south-west Sydney suburb of Lakemba is transformed of a night into a vibrant food festival that attracts thousands of people to the streets to celebrate Ramadan.

 

The Islamic month began last week for Australia's Muslims, marking a time where they fast from dawn until dusk without any food or water.

While densely populated Muslim suburbs across Australia might be quiet during the day, the suburb of Lakemba has become a popular food hotspot that is boosting the local economy.

The food festival has been running for the past 10 years without much safety regulation.

But this year Canterbury City Council has stepped in to regulate the barbeques and food stalls by requiring people to apply for a permit to meet health and safety regulations.

"We've licensed 23 stalls this year," Canterbury Mayor Brian Robson said.

"We've met with the businesses in Haldon Street, and with their help we've actually regulated the use of the barbeques.

"We should be able to control it in a very safe environment."
 

The increasing numbers flocking to Lakemba over the years has led to many concerns about safety.
 

"Last year, it was growing to such an extent that the stalls were actually going onto the road," Cr Robson said.

"We also had an incident where one of the youngsters was almost burnt with one of the barbeques."

The mayor says he expects thousands more to attend this year.

"Lakemba is the heart of Muslim Sydney; it's really a multicultural ceremony," he said.

"We encourage people to come along and to enjoy the facilities we'll be providing."
 

Stall holder Yasser Elyatim mans the popular camel burger stand.

He says the camel burger has been the best seller after going through over 300 kilograms of camel meat in the last week.

"It's become a tradition to eat the camel burgers at night," he said.

Mr Elyatim says all proceeds will go to charity in the spirit of Ramadan.

"All camel burger proceeds goes to the needy in Syria, it's the least we can do to help the needy," he said.

He says he wants more people to experience the Ramadan culture.

"Come down and see what Ramadan's about and what we're about and the hospitality - this is Lakemba," he said.

Many of the stalls are open until the early hours of the morning and one stall holder is Musher Saleh.

He sells carrot juice, coffee, tea and camel and chicken burgers.

"We start from eight until four in the morning," he said.

"It's the best [atmosphere], we have so much fun.

"It's very busy because people prepare themselves for the next day to fast, so they eat a lot so they can handle the next day."

For many people attending the festival, the food and buzz are the highlights.

"We come here to buy almost everything; we try the camel burgers, the chicken kebabs," a father of two kids said.

"It's a beautiful atmosphere. I'm so happy and excited."

A young woman said the special time is about faith, family and community.

"It brings you closer to God, closer to family; it's something that you celebrate," she said.

Another said: "Everywhere else is closed, but this street is open."

Nabil Omar has been making a popular Lebanese treat at his Lakemba home for more than 30 years.

The month of Ramadan means peak season for the grandfather of 13, as he expects to sell about 300 kilograms of the halawet el jeban sweet.

"It's sweet cheese. It comes from Bega," he said.

"We make it especially for Ramadan. It's originally from Tripoli [in Lebanon]."

The Lebanese migrant says the sweets have become part of the Ramadan tradition.

"After they (customers) eat, they go pray in the mosque. After they come back from the mosque, then they have some sweets," he said.

"Even the neighbours enjoy the sweets."
 

 

Source: ABC News

 

US: Muslim women in America have a greater level of economic gender parity with men than any other group studied by Gallup. However, Muslim women feel the least respected of all groups.

Gallup surveys America every day. Based on hundreds of these daily surveys, in early 2009, Gallup developed an in-depth study of the Muslim American community titled, Muslim Americans: A National Portrait.

It is this survey which determined that Muslim women have the best economic gender parity with men in America. They are equal to Muslim men in the lower income bracket and five percent behind Muslim men in the higher income bracket as compared to Jewish women who are 38% behind Jewish men. As a general trend among all religious groups women have lower incomes: 'Protestants and Catholics have the largest gender differences in the lower-income bracket, and Protestants and Jews have the largest difference between men and women in the higher-income bracket.”

My happiness at the findings did not last long as I came across the results on Muslim women feeling respected. The findings showed that Muslim women as compared to other women feel the least respected: 91% of Muslim men reported feeling respected while 85% Muslim women reported that they feel respected. This gap is smaller between Protestant, Catholic and Jewish men and women.

I interviewed the three Gallup analysts who worked on this report. I asked them if they had asked the women why they felt disrespected. Perhaps factors such as hijab or Islamophobia might be contributing to the women's feeling disrespect. Since the survey was not focused on Muslims, there is no way to know more about this respect gap. It might require another survey to explore further.

My mind did wander to the place of Muslim women in the Masjid. It is a reality that many mosques in North America have not made better prayer arrangements for Muslim women. In Chicago, where Juma is offered at about 200 locations, I believe there are 20-plus Masjids where there is no area for women to pray in. I wish these men knew that the Prophet asked Muslim men not to stop women from coming to the Masjid, God's peace and blessings be upon him. Many mosques have women's space so secluded that they cannot see the Imam. This is unlike the Prophet's Masjid, where women could easily see all that was going on. We cannot be better Muslims than our beloved Prophet and his Companions, can we?

Among the major sources of confusion about Islam in America is women's place in the faith. Unfortunately, some Muslims have fueled this with their practices and attitudes. For example, women in Saudi Arabia can't drive. It defies my imagination that Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, would have such an un-Islamic law. Similarly, the Taliban's destruction of girls' schools goes against the very core of Prophetic teachings which make seeking knowledge specifically 'a duty for every Muslim man and every Muslim woman”.

These attitudes are utterly un-Islamic and contribute to Islamophobia. There is some truth to our neighbors' confusion when it comes to the status of women among Muslims. I remember when Governor Howard Dean, then chair of the Democratic Party, came to visit me at the Downtown Islamic Center and I showed him the Masjid area. The first thing he wanted to know was where women pray.

Historically, the role of Muslim women was far more dynamic than it has come become now. We can still feel the impact of our faith's true teachings in rare cases. It speaks to the power of the Quran and the Sunnah that despite the above-mentioned problems, in some ways Muslim women are ahead of other women. Unlike in America, there are more female physicians in Turkey than male ones. Almost 40% of all property is owned exclusively by women in Saudi Arabia thanks to Islamic inheritance laws. Women have been president or prime minister in the largest Muslim country Indonesia, in the second largest Muslim country Pakistan, in the third largest country Bangladesh, and in the fourth largest Muslim country Turkey. However, these good things are blurred out by the previously mentioned realities.

Women's place in Muslim society must constitute a central point of Muslim debates. Muslims must talk and write about this issue, as well as lead discussions about it. The works of Jamal Badawi and Hassan Turabi on women and Islam should be a required reading in our Islamic schools. (The works of both authors are available on Sound Vision's website by authors' permission for free electronic readings.)

Everyone seems to be talking about Muslim women except Muslim women themselves. Most of the time, Amazon's bestsellers on Islam and women are anti-Muslim women like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, and Wafa Sultan. They have either publicly left Islam or have joined a cottage industry of Islam-bashers that has boomed since 9/11.

It is about time that the believing women come forward and lead the way. Muslim women have the education. They have the best income parity with men in America. All they need is more respect.
 

Source: Soundvision

The deviant, criminal, hyper-sexualised male Arab/Muslim, the "explicit" and "closet" bin Ladens, the invading hordes of "boat people" as carriers of illiberal practices that threaten the Australian "way of life," the "pack rapists," the misogynists, the queue-jumpers, the unassimilable Muslim - these are all tropes that have arisen over the last two decades and have become firmly entrenched in our national psyche.
 

So much so that, even now, in 2014, the phantasm of the diabolized Arab and Muslim

 

"Other" can be conjured in a trice, whether in response to the approval of Bendigo's first mosque, or in reaction to selected Woolworths stores displaying "Happy Ramadan" signs.
 

As part of my ongoing doctoral research into Islamophobia, I have been investigating the subtleties that manifest across the spectrum of the phenomenon, mining deep into the attitudes and perceptions of people who harbor ingrained anti-Muslim sentiments. Time and again, I have found that Islamophobia can be explicit and it can be deeply ambiguous.

 

It can manifest itself in the seemingly benign actions of people who are unaware of the ways in which they fetishize Islam and Muslims, and among those who consider Muslims a clandestine group attempting to subvert the nation from within.
 

I have interviewed people who equate Islam to Nazism, who call for abortion clinics for Muslim women, who applaud the deaths of asylum seekers and even advocate that Muslim males wear ankle braces to monitor their movements. I will confess, however, that having coffee with somebody who openly expresses that Muslims are "scum of the earth" has been just as unnerving as speaking with somebody who happily expresses the view that they are "not prejudiced, but ..."
 

 

ABC News

1. Istanbul, Turkey

2. Beijing, China

3. Karachi, Pakistan

Source: World.mic

Kuraby Mosque	MCF/MAA	Toowoomba Mosque	Gold Coast Mosque	UMB
Australian International Islamic College BRISBANE	Australian International Islamic College GOLD COAST	Algester Mosque	Al-Mustapha Institute	ISCQ
Email your calendar to ccn@crescentsofbrisbane.org for inclusion here

Give Thanks to Allah (swt) Message by Dr Mohammad Abdalla and Muslim Aid Australia

Source: Huffington Post   Next week in CCN: Another of the 10 Muslim Women you Have To Know

Nana Asma'u (Nigeria, 1793-1864) Nana was a princess, poet and teacher. She was fluent in Arabic, Fulfulde, Hausa and Tamacheq and well versed in Arabic, Greek and Latin classics.   In 1830, she formed a group of female teachers who journeyed throughout the region to educate women in poor and rural regions.   With the republication of her works, that underscore women's education, she has become a rallying point for African women.   Today, in northern Nigeria, Islamic women's organizations, schools and meeting halls are frequently named in her honor. (Photo: Fula women.)

IWAQ VACANCIES

 

The Islamic Women's Association of Queensland (IWAQ) has a vacancies for a Client Care Services Manager (click here for more information) and an Operations Manager (click here for more information).

 

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House for rent in Kuraby

3 large sized bedrooms, 2 separate living areas with a formal dining room with beautiful timber flooring. This Queenslander home has been beautifully renovated and has two beautiful front and back veranda has and sits on a 888sqm block which gives added privacy to a Muslim family. The house is within 3 minutes walking distance to the train station and masjid and must be rented out ASAP. Asking $460/week. Please call 0411064035 to arrange an inspection.

 

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House for rent in Underwood

3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom modern townhouse in highly sought after Aaminah Place, Underwood. Immediately available. Rental $390-410 negotiable. Please call Bilal urgently on 0481 518 591.

Pictures can be found here.