Saudi Arabia’s civil defence authority says more than 200 injured in preparations for annual hajj pilgrimage.

At least 107 people were killed and 238 more were injured when a crane collapsed on to the Grand Mosque during storms in the Muslim holy city of Mecca on Friday, the Saudi Arabian government has said.

The director general of the country’s civil defence authority, Suleiman al-Amr, said high winds caused the disaster.

On its Twitter account, the authority said rescue teams had been sent to the scene and offered its “sincere condolences” over the deaths, as well as its prayers for the speedy recoveries of those injured.

Pictures showed a large group of people lying on polished tiled flooring, most of them near to a wall and surrounded by rubble and other debris. One man appeared to be being wheeled out of the building on a wheelchair. Bloodied people were being treated at the scene.
 

Other images showed parts of a crane that crashed through the roof of a building.

Abdel Aziz Naqoor, who said he worked at the mosque, told Agence France-Presse that he had seen the crane fall after being hit by the storm. “If it weren’t for al-Tawaf bridge the injuries and deaths would have been worse,” he said, referring to a covered walkway that surrounds the Ka’bah and broke the crane’s fall.

The UK Foreign Office said it was urgently investigating whether any British citizens were caught up in the accident. “We are are aware of the incident and are in close contact with the Saudi authorities,” a spokeswoman said.

David Cameron tweeted: “My thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost loved ones at Mecca today.”

The governor of Mecca region, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, ordered an investigation into the incident and was heading to the mosque, according to the local government.

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US: A young Jewish American man has been charged with pretending to be an Australian-based Islamic State jihadist after a FBI joint investigation with the Australian Federal Police based on information provided by Fairfax Media.

Joshua Ryne Goldberg, a 20-year old living at his parents' house in US state of Florida, is accused of posing online as "Australi Witness," an IS supporter who publicly called for a series of attacks against individuals and events in western countries.

In recent days Australi Witness has claimed online that he is working with other jihadists to plan attacks in Australia and the United States. He distributed pictures of a bomb that he was working on with "2 lbs of explosives inside".

Early on Friday, Australian time, Goldberg, who is non-Muslim and has no real-world links with extremism, was arrested at his home by Florida police for "distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction".

Australian national security and citizenship laws were strengthened last year to create a new offence of advocating terrorism, partly to stop online recruitment of jihadists, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier this year allocated significant funding to security agencies because "too many Australians are being brainwashed online by this death cult".

However, one of those apparent representatives of Islamic State has now been revealed as an America-based, non-Muslim online hoaxer.

The Australian Federal Police do not intend to apply for Goldberg's extradition, but said in a statement that he faced a 20-year prison term if convicted.

"Investigations by the AFP in June 2015 established no initial threat to the Australian community. When investigations determined it was likely the person responsible for these threats was based in the United States, the investigation became the jurisdiction of the FBI, with the AFP in a support role."

AFP Acting Deputy Commissioner National Security Neil Gaughan alleged Goldberg had "relied on the internet providing a cloak of anonymity".

"This operation again highlights how law enforcement can investigate people in the online space and use our long-established partnerships to work with overseas agencies to bring people to account for their actions".

An affidavit sworn at the time of the arrest says that, between August 19 and August 28, Mr Goldberg "distributed information pertaining to the manufacturing of explosives, destructive devices, or weapons of mass destruction in furtherance of an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence".

US Attorney Lee Bentley III, said Goldberg instructed a confidential source how to make a bomb similar to two used in the Boston Marathon bombings two years ago that killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

He allegedly instructed someone how to fill the bomb with nails, metal and other items dipped in rat poison.

Police base the charge on his communication of five web links to sites that provided instructions that could be used to make explosives as part of a plot to explode a bomb on September 13 at a memorial ceremony in Kansas City, commemorating the 9/11 the terrorist attacks.

The affidavit, released by Special agent William Berry of US Customs and Border Protection, says that Goldberg had initially denied to officers that he had any involvement with distributing information on how to make a bomb, but then later admitted it.

"Goldberg further admitted that he believed the information would create a genuine bomb," Agent Berry alleged.

However, Goldberg also claimed that he meant for the person he was communicating with to either kill himself creating the bomb or, that Goldberg intended to warn police in time so that he would receive "credit for stopping the attack".

In conversations with Fairfax Media, which were also cited in the affidavit, Mr Goldberg had said he did not expect any jihadist to actually carry out an attack because: "These guys are pussy keyboard warriors".

Fairfax media can also reveal that Goldberg, as Australi Witness, is suspected of a number of other online hoaxes, including posing online as prominent Australian lawyer, Josh Bornstein.
Australi Witness's online actions might have had fatal real-world consequences in May.

In the leadup to an exhibition in Garland, Texas, at which pictures of the Prophet Mohammed were to be displayed, "Australi Witness" tweeted the event's address and reposted a tweet urging people to go there with "weapons, bombs or with knifes".

Two Muslim men attempted an attack at the exhibition, and were killed by police. Australi Witness then praised them online as martyrs.

The Australi Witness persona fooled members of the international intelligence community as well as journalists, with well-known analyst Rita Katz of SITE Intelligence Group saying the "IS supporter" held a "prestige" position in online jihadi circles and was "part of the hard core of a group of individuals who constantly look for targets for other people to attack".

Ms Katz has previously acted as a consultant for US and foreign governments and testified before Congress on online terrorist activities.

The Australian Federal Police were unaware of Australi Witness's real identity as Goldberg until contacted by journalists working on behalf of Fairfax Media.

In the Bornstein hoax, Goldberg established a blog on the Times of Israel in the lawyer's name before posting an inflammatory article calling for the "extermination" of Palestinians. The Times retracted the article and apologised, and Bornstein went public with the story saying "I deplore racism…I've fought racism since I was four years old".

When confronted, Goldberg boasted he had avoided detection, saying, "That guy has no idea. He thinks [online radical right wing website] Daily Stormer did it." He also said he wanted to obtain Bornstein's real life address, in order to "freak him out even more".

In conversations and in articles written under his real name, Goldberg repeatedly professed to be an advocate for free speech, and showed disdain for organisations and individuals who call for limits on hate speech or hate speech laws.

As Australi Witness, he publicly linked himself to Amnesty International, saying that he used to work there. The fake jihadi also claimed a friendship with anti-Islamophobia campaigner Mariam Veiszadeh, but only to smear her reputation.

In online conversations, Goldberg said: "I wanna smear Amnesty and Mariam Veiszadeh…Amnesty is already in hot water over their links to CAGE, I wanna cement their jihadist connections and ruin their reputation. And Mariam is a Muslim whore, so smearing her as a jihadist should be easy."

Ms Veiszadeh said she was not suprised at Goldberg's arrest, saying she had "fallen within his radar" because of the campaign by an anti-Muslim hate group, the Australian Defence League, who campaigned to "incite hatred and violence towards me from across the globe."

Mr Bornstein declined to comment.

Source: SMH

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On 4th and 5th September, the Islamic School Associations of Australia (ISAA) held its annual educational conference and AGM.

The event was hosted in the Gold Coast by the Australian International Islamic College, Gold Coast Campus.

Principals and board members from across Australia gathered to discuss Corporate Social Responsibilities, Organizational Capacity Building, School Improvement Programs, Community Empowerment and many other Initiatives.

 
Executive director from Independent Schools Queensland (ISQ) Mr. David Robertson discussed the current and future trends in the educational landscape and policy direction for Australian independent schools.

 
Mr. Robertson commended the growth in independent Islamic schools, and acknowledged the need for greater resilience in a rapidly changing global climate.

Mr. Abdullah Khan President of The ISAA Management Council said, “This year’s ISAA conference has been a great success and much progress has been achieved through this professional collaboration and networking".

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Thursday as an exciting day for the primary school at the Islamic College of Brisbane.

Hundreds of students donned the Ihraam and participated in the Hajj Enactment program organized by the Islamic and Arabic team and supported by the parents' committee CPAC.

"It was aimed at giving our learners a real experience of the Hajj," Mufti Zeeyad Ravat told CCN.

All students were given show bags with Hajj items that included Zam Zam water and passports with an immigration stamp, and the school was decorated with Hajj flyers and balloons.

Students were taken for a tour of a replica Kaba by the Imams and were the significance of the Hajrul Aswad, the Maqame Ibraheem and the Zam Zam were explained to them.

A detailed, illustrative slideshow was presented before linking up live to Makkah Mukarramah and viewing the tawaaf.

"Teachers and parents were in tears when we were taken for a tour to Medina Munawwarah and saw an artist's impression of the Holy Mosque set in the time of the Prophet Sallalahu Alayhi Wasallam," Mufti Ravaat said.

"Our students took us on an emotional journey with their rendition of the nasheed Ya Tayba Ya Tayba in praise of this peaceful city of our dear Prophet. May Allah take us all for Hajj inshallah".

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Grand Mufti Office and Australian National Imam’s Council

The Office of the Grand Mufti (OGM) and the Australian National Imam’s Council (ANIC) welcome the announcement of the Australian Government’s decision to increase the humanitarian intake by 12,000 people and provide $44 million in financial aid for refugee agencies.

However, the OGM and ANIC have serious concerns regarding the significant delay in this much--needed measure, despite the Syrian Crisis entering its fifth year; described by many as the worst refugee crisis since World War Two and displacing over 10 million Syrians.

It is imperative that the Australian Government plays a more significant role in providing aid and increasing its refugee intake. The OGM and ANIC are concerned by the various comments made by the PM and some Government Ministers that the selection criteria of the refugee intake would be based on religious screening.

The effect of such comments would set a dangerous precedent, have serious repercussions on the social fabric of Australian communities and foster a discriminatory environment.

The OGM and ANIC would like to emphasise that the Syrian crisis would have not been so severe had the international community, including Australia, fulfilled its international obligations towards the plight of the Syrian people.
 

Muslims Australia

Mr Hafez Kassem, President of Muslims Australia – AFIC, welcomed the announcement by Prime Minister Tony Abbott that Australia will take 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq in addition to the existing humanitarian program.

However, Mr Kassem said, the Muslim community of Australia is extremely concerned about discriminatory policy of prioritizing refugees on the basis of their faith. European countries like Germany, Sweden and United Kingdom are taking significant numbers of refugees but none of these countries are screening refugees on the basis of faith or ethnicity.

This Syrian conflict has impacted people from all faiths and none of the religious groups are safe from grave danger and their lives have been shattered. Sunni Muslims, despite making up 80% of Syrian population have been the victims of brutal regimes in the country controlled by minority groups for decades.

Mr Kassem emphasised that he did not want discrimination against any group. He said the Prime Minister should take the high moral ground and stop bigots in his party from dividing the Australian community.

He added that it would be a sad day for this country to embark on a policy that could destroy the social fabric of our multicultural and harmonious society. As Persian poet Rumi said “Not a Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen, Not any religion … first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being”.

Islamic Council of Queensland

The Islamic Council of Queensland welcomes the announcement that Australia will take 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq in addition to the 13,750 places allocated through existing humanitarian program. However, we are extremely concerned about the discriminatory and divisive policy of prioritizing refugees on the basis of their faith.

Almost 85% of Syrians are currently living in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq with countries like Germany, Sweden and United Kingdom making significant commitments. None of these countries are screening refugees or discriminating on the basis of faith or ethnicity.

While there has been no official data on religions by Syrian government since 1960, it is believed that around 7% of the Syrians are Christians with other minorities like Alawis and Druze making around 12% of the total population. With close to 12 Million Syrians either internally or externally displaced, this conflict has impacted Syrians of every faith.

Most people fleeing Syria are desperate and are doing so because their lives have been shattered and are in grave danger; none of the religious groups are safe as they are crushed between Assad government and ISIS.

ICQ spokesperson Ali Kadri said “Discrimination in our migration policy is unprecedented and goes against the democratic values of our nation. I believe the current government is completely out of touch with our values as a nation”

“It is a practice of terrorist groups and despotic regimes to discriminate against people on the basis of their religion. I am afraid that such discriminatory policy will put the lives of millions of Muslims at risk and further risk the lives of Syrian minorities living in Syria and neighbouring Muslim countries”
 

We also condemn the declaration of the bombing campaign announced today. Syrian conflict can only be resolved through diplomatic means and bombing will only add to the miseries of the Syrian people.

ICQ president Ismail Cajee said “It will be much more beneficial for the safety of Syrians and our national security to spend the money on refugees rather than on bombs in a conflict which is thousands of miles away from our shores”

The Australian Government's official announcement on its Syrian refugee intake can be read here.

The Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney-General and Labor's Federal Member for Moreton, Mr Graham Perrett MP, issued this statement on the subject.

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Share the Dignity, a new initiative pioneered by Brisbanite, Rochelle Courtenay aims to provide homeless and at risk women nationally with sanitary products to allow them a sense of dignity at a time when they need it most.

Rochelle believes there is a direct correlation between domestic violence and mental health issues and the rise in homelessness, which increasingly affects very young and older women, and disproportionately affects single parents — mostly women.
 

There are currently 105,237 homeless people living in Australia, of whom 44 percent identify as female, according to Homelessness Australia.

And while the male population of the homeless community is higher, there’s one recurring challenge homeless women have to deal with with on top of all their other struggles: their period.
 

Share The Dignity held its first drive in March and collected more than 400 pads and tampons to donate to homeless women.

After distributing them to local women’s shelters, the remaining sanitary items were sent to Vanuatu to aid disaster relief efforts.

Share The Dignity now has nationwide collections in the months of April and August each year (the “A” months).
 

A collection was recently organised by the Logan Women’s Health and Wellbeing Centre in conjunction with the local Muslim Community.

Saalihah Seedat, who helped co-ordinate the collection said that “The response was phenomenal with over 500 items being collected during the last two weeks in August.”

The Muslim Charitable Foundation made a $1000 cash donation to this worthy cause.

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Muslims in Melbourne have criticised the Australian Federal Police for rejecting an invitation to speak at a forum examining the Abbott government’s anti-terror laws.

The Muslim Legal Network ­invited the AFP to have a representative speak at Saturday’s forum, which focused on existing anti-­terror laws, new amendments and their impact on the Muslim and broader community.

An AFP spokesman told The Australian the AFP and Victoria Police decided not to attend “after careful consideration of the topics likely to be covered at the event”, which had about 80 attendees.

The spokesman said “the broad nature of the topics proposed did not allow either agency to supply an appropriate spokesperson”, adding they would continue to meet with “a range of community groups in an effort to share ideas, concerns and understanding”.

Panellists included solicitor Jessie Smith from Stary Norton Halphen, the firm that represented Harun Causevic, who was ­acquitted of Anzac Day terror charges; former Islamic Council of Victoria president Ghaith Krayem; and Monash University sociologist Helen Forbes-Mewett.

Ms Smith, who spoke at the forum about reconceptualising how “the terror threat is neutralised”, said it had been ­organised for some time and “in the spirit of advancing community cohesion”. She said the AFP had initially agreed to send a representative.

“It was unprofessional for (the AFP) to pull out at the last minute,” she said. “The MLN is a well-respected and well-co-ordinated organisation and a lot of people have a lot of respect for them.”

An MLN spokeswoman said the group had designed the forum to “empower and educate” the community by giving them access to the experts in the field of anti-­terrorism law and policy, “including law enforcement”.

She said the group received “constant feedback from members of the community, both Muslims and non-Muslims, expressing uncertainty and confusion about how existing and new anti-terror laws will impact us all”.

Mr Krayem, who stepped down as the Islamic Council of Victoria president yesterday because of other commitments, said he was surprised the AFP had agreed to be participate in the first place. “It would have been nice for them to have been there and heard questions, but we did not lose anything by not having them there,” he said.
 

Source: The Australian

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What do Vegemite, Cadbury's chocolate, Bega cheese and Kellogg's cereals have in common? They are all Halal certified. Like many products on our supermarket shelves, they've been given the tick of approval for Muslim consumers to buy.

For food producers and exporters it's a straightforward pragmatic business practice. The manufacturer pays for an inspection to gain Halal certification, which in turn opens up lucrative markets.

"Halal certification is a ticket to play." Export Business Advisor

To the growing anti-Halal movement it's the thin edge of the wedge, a sign of the Islamification of Australia.

"I do not want religious practices imposed upon me and I do not want to fund these practices with my everyday grocery purchases." Anti-Halal Campaigner

It's become a touchstone issue for groups like Reclaim Australia, that label it a 'religious tax' foisted on consumers.

Claims about corruption and links to terrorism light up the blogosphere and provide fodder for anti-Islam rallies.

Four Corners goes in search of the truth and follows the money trail to reveal where the Halal funds are ending up.

We meet key players in the anti-Halal movement and the men who decide what's Halal and what's not - and hold the key to multi-billion dollar export markets.

Source: ABC

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NSW: The UNSW Islamic Society (ISOC) has awarded its inaugural scholarship to Joel Stellar, a final year Bachelor of Science student majoring in Geography for his commitment to social justice, and demonstrating academic merit and leadership.
 

The $5000-a-year scholarship was launched last year at ISOC’s 45th anniversary celebrations. “When I found out more about the society and how the money for the scholarship was raised from donations during Friday morning prayers, I felt incredibly honoured and touched by their generosity and their dedication to social justice,” says Joel.
 

Mahmoud Jaame, the UNSW Muslim students’ chaplain, explains the background of the scholarship.

“We started the scholarship to thank the University for having us on campus for such a long time,” he says. “The society has donated money to various projects, and members thought it was time to give back to the University community.”

The scholarship recipient does not have to be a Muslim – it is open to students of all religions. Jaame says that once they had a shortlist of four students, they chose the candidate with the best academic record and social justice commitment.

 
Joel is not Muslim, but Jaame says he had the most impressive experience.

 
During his time at UNSW, Joel completed an internship with Amnesty International in the Refugee Casework Team, working with refugees in detention centres. He had volunteered as a telephone crisis counsellor with Lifeline, and at Australian Refugee Volunteers, an organisation that seeks to improve the lives of children and families from asylum seeker and refugee backgrounds.

The UNSW Islamic Society recently presented Joel with the scholarship in a ceremony at one of their special Iftaars, a communal meal celebrating the breaking of the daily fast during Ramadan.

 
“It was a touching experience for me and I won't forget it,” Joel says. The society made him “feel so welcome by receiving me with such an incredibly generous and open nature”, he says.

Joel is using the scholarship money in various ways, including travelling to Palestine in August. “I'm looking at trying to gain a better understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through learning about real-life experiences. It was very eye-opening, and the deep pain and complexity of it has hit me hard,” he says.

Living in a wealthy, privileged country like Australia, Joel believes that people have a duty to fight for social justice at home and around the world. “This scholarship is important as it values and recognises this, and will continue to recognise students for their commitment to social justice and encourage more involvement in these issues,” he says.

The society plans to expand the scholarship in 2019, when it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

The above article was written by the UNSW Foundation for the IMPACT newsletter.
 

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Pauline Hanson copped it from all directions in a fiery confrontation on Sunrise this morning.

The leader of the far-right One Nation party was excoriated by commentator Derryn Hinch, accused of cherry-picking by David Koch and challenged by Samantha Armytage.

Hinch and Hanson were invited onto the Channel Seven breakfast show to debate Australia's response to the Syrian refugee crisis.

War of words: Commentator Derryn Hinch and right-wing politician Pauline Hanson debate Australian refugee policy on Sunrise. Photo: Supplied

Hanson began by telling viewers "our hearts go out to these people".

But her empathy abruptly morphed into a rambling laundry list of grievances.

"Just last week, I was up in Rockhampton," she said.

"Refugees that are now in the town are actually taking jobs in the meat works. And Australians up there feel that they are reverse-racism (sic)."

Without pausing to explain what reverse-racism is, or how it differs from garden-variety racism, she switched to the plight of the local high schools. They have more than "100 refugee children each" who are "abusing and making death threats to the teachers", she alleged. It's so bad that a full-time police officer is reportedly required to maintain law and order in the playground.

And she wasn't finished: "We also have Australians that are protesting over the mosques that are going to want to be built in Australia ... I was out at Birdsville — the prime minister reneged on $7 million..."

By this point, Koch had grown dubious.

"I think you're cherry-picking there, though Pauline, aren't you?" he asked her. "You're really cherry-picking bad..."

Hanson maintained she wanted to see where the money would come from. This caused Hinch to erupt.

"It's offensive even having you on the bloody program!" he thundered.

"Where's the money going to come from? How about the millions that we spend to send four people to go to Cambodia? You could have brought 50 thousand here!

"If the prime minister announced, change of heart, he would bring in 50,000 refugees, sadly the Australian electorate — many of them, ones like you — wouldn't accept it. It's a special case of the worst refugee situation and displacement of people since World War II. The world can't sit back and do nothing!"

Hinch said that while he agreed with the boat turn-back policy, "this is different ... [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel deserves the Peace Prize for the fact Germany has stepped up to the plate, which our country has not."

Hanson, however, predicted widespread suffering if Australia did the same.

When Koch pointed out the many Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants of the 1970s and '80s are now "thriving communities", she countered him with an anecdote.

"I have met a Vietnamese taxi driver ... and he said what is happening: we have never had the problems we have had in this country from any other religious organisation than we have with the Muslims. So people are now protesting on the streets over this. And if you want to have peace and harmony in this country, you cannot keep increasing the Muslims, Islam, in Australia. We are going to have huge problems down the track..."

"Look at our community," she urged viewers.

"Look at our society, as a result of [immigration]. So much more enriched. Just think about that."

If Abbott does welcome refugees, Hanson warned viewers, he'll face a voter backlash: "Australians are protesting now over mosques; it's impacting on their beliefs over schools..."

Hinch could not even deal.

"Would you run a disclaimer after the segment?" he asked his hosts. "'I wish I hadn't been on it.' Just at the bottom. Jeez."
 

Source: SMH

Teachers smash Pauline Hanson's racism claims

ONE Nation leader Pauline Hanson yesterday declared on national television that the "over 100" refugee children at Glenmore State High School were abusing teachers, despite the fact that none are enrolled there.

Her comments were made during Seven's morning television program Sunrise, where Ms Hanson and social commentator Derryn Hinch were debating Australia's participation in the Syrian refugee crisis.

"Refugees that are now in the town (Rocky) are actually taking the jobs in the meatworks and Australians up there feel like there is reverse racism," Ms Hanson said on air.

"The schools, North Rockhampton School plus also (Glenmore) School, high schools, have over 100 refugee children each.

"They are abusing and making death threats to the teachers, you have a full-time police officer there."

When interviewed yesterday afternoon, Ms Hanson said she had spoken to teachers and an employee related to the meatworks industry during her visits to Rockhampton.

She was recently in the region for the Reclaim Australia Rally and the Yeppoon Races.

The politician said teachers in the schools were scared of the "standover" tactics employed by refugee children, and talked to a meatworker who felt that the industry was "turning to halal" and would only employ "Muslims".

But the Queensland Teachers Union Rockhampton organiser Barry Thomson said he "seriously doubted the validity" of the comments.

"There are active and proactive union representatives in these schools and the issue has never been raised."

Similarly, in the Settlement Works report by the Multicultural Development Association, the Rockhampton meatworks provided information into their migrant workforce.

In it, Teys Australia said humanitarian refugees working in the Rockhampton site had addressed a critical shortage of workers.

But Ms Hanson also said a major concern with refugee intake was the cost, and their religious background.

"Each refugee costs Australia half a million dollars," she said.

"These refugees, within five years, 90% are still unemployed on benefits. Are we going to keep borrowing money to pay these bills?

"I am very strong on no Muslim refugees in Australia... if we were to take refugees they should be Christians."

A Department of Immigration spokesperson said the cost to government of settling a refugee varied depending on a number of factors.

"Costs can be influenced by the origin and needs of the refugee, the level of service provided by government agencies and the employment outcome for the individual," the spokesperson said.

Fact check

According to the UNHCR Global Trends Report, Australia is ranked 69th in the world for per capita intake. Australia takes the most refugees on a per capita basis through its re-settlement program only, where the person is transferred to a third country

Data from the ABS estimates that 43% of migrants on humanitarian visas receive their main source of income from either wages or salary.

Source: The Bulletin

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Muslim Link interviewed Ilhan Ibrahim, who, along with her two sisters Hodan Ibrahim and Ayan Ibrahim, have co-founded Qurtuba Publishing House.

6. Tell us about your call out for Authors. What type of book ideas are you looking for?

My Qurtuba Publishing House wants to be more than a publishing house. We want to bring to the forefront knowledge-sharing platforms on issues that are pertinent to the needs of the contemporary Muslim. By producing accessible and cutting-edge publications on relevant issues to Muslims today, we want to tackle important issues that are often not represented or untapped by our communities. In order for us to be more than a publishing house, we need to do more than publish books. Qurtuba wants to have discussions and create spaces for Muslims to not just gain knowledge, but use that information in a constructive and productive way. Knowledge is rendered fruitless without practicality, feasibility, and most importantly, accessibility. When knowledge becomes accessible to Muslims, our communities become innovative, our youth become leaders, and we are able to contemporize Islamic perspectives into our current reality. That is the vision and spirit of Qurtuba Publishing House.

We recently made a post calling for authors to contribute to our blog. As mentioned, we want to discuss relevant issues, share ideas, and inspire leadership in Muslims. In order to meet this goal, we wanted to create platforms online through blog posts, articles, and online discussions. Alhamdulillah, we are also planning to create live events through workshops and seminars in the coming months. All these platforms are designed to equip Muslims with the tools and skills necessary to address current challenges and counter the growing challenges of being a Muslim our world today.

We welcome anyone who has a passion to inspire productivity and engagement in Muslim communities and wishes to contribute to our blog to contact us at qurtubapublishing@gmail.com.

Many of the book ideas that we have currently produced and are in the process of being produced are topics that Muslims today can relate to on a personal and communal level. For instance, another book we have published is a guide to entrepreneurship for the Muslim woman. Currently, one of our authors is working on a book titled “The Health Conscious Muslim: A Muslim Woman’s Journey of Navigating the World of Health and Fitness” as a means of engaging Muslims to become more health conscious and make positive lifestyle changes inspired by the Qur’an and Sunnah.

NEXT WEEK IN CCN:

7. What have been the lessons learned so far from starting your own publishing house?

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Dear Editor

I was wondering if you would be able to inform your readers of your newsletter about speeding around school zones during peak times. I have had a number of complaints from parents of Kuraby Special School regarding regular offenders travelling along Winifred Street, Kuraby (which is the rear of the school but most of the students get dropped off there).

While the Police have been out there enforcing the law, I am also trying to educate everyone about the dangers of speeding through school zones. This applies to all schools in the local area. I am trying to get this information out to as broad a base as possible.

Many thanks.

Kim

Kind regards,

Councillor Kim Marx

COUNCILLOR KIM MARX
Karawatha Ward
Level 2 Sunnybank Hills Shoppingtown
Calam Road, Sunnybank Hills QLD 4109
Phone: 3407 0566
Fax: 3407 0568
Email: karawatha.ward@bcc.qld.gov.au

Dear CCN Readers

Over the recent days the world has seen the worst of humanity when thousands of Syrian refugees are entering Europe to find a place to save their lives from a never ending war in their homeland. These people had homes, jobs, family, good life, but now they are on the streets with nothing but their lives.

And many of them have already lost their lives on the way to Europe, in water and on the road, including now well-known Aylan Kurdi, a boy of 3 year old. But no one knows how many more children have lost their lives in the war and the world will never know their names.

If this is happening at the peak of the civilization for which we are so proud, then how do we show our faces to these who have lost their love ones due to lack of actions of the global leaders, Muslims included, to stop the war.

The desperate refugees fleeing war zones are getting help from ordinary people and governments in Europe (big thankyou to German Chancellor) and elsewhere, we Muslims have a greater obligation to help those less fortunate members of humanity.
Doing nothing is not an option, we have to be answerable to Allah.

To do the minimum for the people who have lost everything, Islamic Society of Toowoomba asks everyone to make duwa for them and has launched an appeal to collect donations to help Syrian Refugees as a matter of urgency.
We also ask governments at all levels to be generous in supporting the refugees and help settle them in countries in Europe and generous countries like Australia.

Donations can be deposited/transferred to:
A/C Name: Islamic Society of Toowoomba
Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Toowoomba Branch
BSB # 064459 and A/C # 1000 3579 (Please Write Reference: Syrian Refugee)

May Allah protect His servants and let us do our part to help the oppressed and homeless people.

Best wishes,
Prof Shahjahan Khan

Islamic Society of Toowoomba

The CCN Read of the Week

Return: A Palestinian Memoir

by

Ghada Karmi

Review

An exile returns to her homeland to contribute to building a viable state. But what she finds is ‘flotsam and jetsam, scattered and divided’

Doctor, author, academic and political activist Ghada Karmi is versatile, cosmopolitan and highly intelligent, and comes across as both self-absorbed and deeply committed to the struggle for Palestinian rights. She has dual identity as a thoroughly anglicised woman who is also a staunch Palestinian nationalist, adept at presenting the Palestinian case to a western audience.

Karmi’s academic books on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not add significantly to the voluminous literature on the subject. Her autobiographical works, however, provide a unique perspective on the Palestinian predicament. She is at her very best when she writes about herself. In Search of Fatima was a beautifully written and moving narrative of her displacement from Jerusalem in 1948 set against the backdrop of the major political events that shaped the course of modern Palestinian history. Return is both a sequel and a standalone memoir. On display is the same fluent writing style, the psychological insight and the outstanding skill for mixing the personal with the political.
 

In 2005, Karmi returned to her homeland not as a tourist but as a consultant to the ministry of media and communications of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. She wanted to be at the heart of things, to be part of the community, to make her contribution to state-building. But the actual experience she records in this memoir is one of pretty comprehensive disappointment and disillusion. The reader is invited to see through her eyes this angst-filled, rollercoaster journey.

Working for the PA turned out to be at once exhilarating and exhausting. It behaved as if it were the government of a state, with departments of finance, transport, education, health, etc; but, in reality, everything in the Palestinian occupied territories was controlled by Israel. By being on the inside, Karmi became aware of the profound and pervasive impact of Israeli power. She places both Israel and the PA under an harsh lens. The PA, she argues, assumed the trappings of a sovereignty over its lands while in reality it was subservient to the occupying power in every sense and at every level. With practically no sources of income of its own, it is heavily dependent on foreign aid from a variety of places. To Karmi’s way of thinking, the PA’s only honourable path is to abandon its empty, posturing display of power and to assume its proper role as the leadership of a people under colonial occupation.

The picture painted by her of the inner workings of her ministry is unflattering in the extreme, verging on the surreal. The ministry existed in a bubble of its own, paralysed by internal rivalries and petty bureaucratic infighting. Most of her colleagues saw her as a bossy and arrogant outsider and thwarted her at every turn. She looked with horror on the many Palestinian opportunists and time-servers who betrayed the ideals of the revolution although they brandished them whenever it was expedient. So the return to Palestine produced not a sense of solidarity in the struggle for the common cause but rather bitterness and alienation. Wherever the well-intentioned doctor went, she was out of place: too Palestinian in Britain and too British in Palestine.

Karmi’s entire life had centred on the fundamental facts of the catastrophe of 1948, from which all else was derivative. By her own estimation, she is one of the custodians of Palestinian history. So it came as a bit of a shock to discover that for the Palestinians in the occupied territories, people like her are irrelevant, far removed from the immediate reality of the extraordinarily harsh conditions imposed on them by the Israelis, their army and their settlements. It was not that the past was another country. But the locals were more preoccupied with the daily struggle for survival against a brutal oppressor than with the grand Palestinian narrative of the past.

In her travels through the occupied territories, Karmi saw nothing to lift her spirits. The worst blot on the landscape was the so-called “security barrier” that the Israelis are building on the West Bank in flagrant violation of international law. Israel’s transgressions against the Palestinians were nothing new to her. She had been campaigning against them since 1971. Surely, she thought, the wall was but another addition to a long, unsavoury symbol of something indefinably cruel; a naked expression of Israeli entitlement. Its brazen message to the world was: “This country was Israel’s and Israel’s alone, to settle, loot, divide, carve up, refashion, rename, and do with whatever it pleased.”

In the Gaza Strip, Karmi saw nothing but a spectrum of despair. The dire situation in Gaza was of Israel’s making, created out of deliberate impoverishment and violence. It was a cruel social experiment in isolating almost half the population of Palestine, with far-reaching consequences for the society as a whole.

Extremism, escapism, fanaticism and conspiracy theories thrive in such environments, and Gaza is prey to all of these. At one end of the scale of despair, Karmi saw suspicious, inward-looking people, averse to strangers; at the other end, she saw people enveloped in their cosy vision of a triumphant Islam that would vanquish their enemies. The wonder for Karmi was not that Gaza was caving in to narrow-mindedness and extreme religiosity but that, despite its depredations, it was still on its feet and fighting to stay alive.

Karmi’s core belief throughout her adult life had been that the crime committed by Israel against the Palestinians in 1948 would somehow have to be redressed, that the dispossessed Palestinian nation must one day return to its country. Despite the defeatism of the Palestinian official stance and the indifference of many of the Palestinians around her, Karmi never doubted the rightness of her position.

But following her return to Palestine, her core belief in that certainty began to falter. Her time there taught her that two fundamentals she had always believed in had been transformed out of all recognition: there was no national cause any more and no unified national struggle for return.

She looked back on her whole assignment in “Palestine” and realised that she had achieved none of her aims because that would never have been possible in the Palestine that she found. She had travelled to the land of her birth with a sense of return, but it was a return to the past, to the Palestine of a distant memory, not to the dismal present place.

Karmi’s journey filled her with bitterness and grief. She remembers looking down on a night-time Tel Aviv from the windows of a plane that took her back to London and thinking to herself: “Flotsam and jetsam, that’s what we have become, scattered and divided. There’s no room for us or our memories here. And it won’t ever be reversed.” This is a depressing conclusion to a profoundly depressing book. One puts it down with sympathy for the conflicted chronicler and a better appreciation of the formidable obstacles that remain on the road to Palestinian independence and statehood.
 
Source: The Guardian

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