Entries from May 2007 ↓

We’ve written before about some of these ’studies’ and the possible side-effects of emphasising and accentuating Muslim disadvantage, so there is no need to go over some of these issues again.

Earlier in the year, the Sydney-based Independent Centre for Research Australia (ICRA) released a report — perhaps tellingly called All Eyes On Youth study (an allusion, it seems, to the Tupac song All Eyez On Me) — that concluded that:

The All Eyes On Youth study found eight out of 10 young Muslims aged between 12 and 25 considered the education system of no assistance “in making lifetime choices”, and 94 per cent lacked a clear goal in life.

And:

ICRA president Fadi Rahman told The Australian yesterday he was alarmed that almost all the 75 males involved in the survey had experimented with drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine.

The same Independent Centre for Research Australia (ICRA) is back in the media again with a new study.

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Abu Eesa at his new blog Alternative Entertainment has some thoughts on insurance. He makes the usual distinction made by the scholars between mutual insurance (permissible) and commercial insurance (generally considered to be impermissible) and then proceeds to discuss some of these objections.

Leaving aside the question of whether commercial insurance is or is not permissible, the fact remains that mutual insurance is generally allowed. As Islamic Law, etc. posted some time ago, mutual insurance can be broadly defined as follows:

On the other hand, they allowed mutual insurance. Mutual companies are owned by the policyholders, while stockholders (who may or may not own policies) own stock insurance companies. A mutual company is, in the simplest terms, where all parties are members of an insurance ‘guild’ contributing to the ‘pot’. These contributions are charitable in nature and are seen as the the collective right of the guild, in which everyone agrees that if one member is faced with adversity or some loss that the money collected will be used to offset that loss.

Although the trend seems to be towards demutualisation, Australia and other Western societies do have mutual insurance companies offering a variety of consumer and business insurance products. The now demutualised AMP is one well known example, but there is also Australian Unity who continue to be mutualised.

As we have written many times before on this site, it is shameful that despite having been in this country for so many decades, we have been unable to even verify the permissibility of these existing products and structures, let alone come up with new ones (if required). This is not to say that Australian Unity or the other mutual insurance companies are offering a halal product (that requires further investigation) but certainly it would be useful for those with the requisite knowledge in our community to look at some of these existing products and structures rather than simply denounce insurance as haram (forbidden) and offer no alternative to the people.

In a department store yesterday, a sales assistant was helping me with a product; he needed to check the price and when he got back to me, he went to ring through the transaction. In the interim, a woman had gone to the counter, products on hand ready to buy.

Technically I was there first and because of that, I was served first. Surprisingly, she didn’t move a single inch at the small counter, making the transaction extremely difficult. I finally asked her, politely, if she could please move a bit so that I could complete my purchase.

Heavily and slowly, she moved, but not without giving me what I can only term a look of pure and utter hatred. I was a little surprised and, although I felt slightly sick from her look, not being an overly shy type I was about to ask her what the problem was. But I didn’t. I thought it may create unnecessary fuss, and really, part of me didn’t want to know. If it escalated, it would ruin my mood and my day.

Instead, I finished the transaction and shook off the incident immediately. Past experience has taught me it’s the only way to not let it weigh on my mind.

But I didn’t completely forget it.

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The thought of their head of state being married to a woman who wears the dreaded hijab appears too much for some Turks to handle. As al-Ahram put it:

Secularist Turks regard having a head-scarfed first lady in the presidential palace as a violation of the secular state.

And the military is so distressed that they are even hinting at a coup if elections were to ever deliver such a result. It’s a strange case of secularism versus democracy with the Turkish military and some section of the community clearly on the side of secularism. .

This ideology, often called Kemalism after its supposed founder, has created an authoritarian state that, in its fanatical opposition to religious symbols, has veered into the absurd. For example, as Gul Gunver, a Turkish professor, reminds us, the daughter of the presidential candidate wears a wig over her hijab in order to be allowed to attend university.

Anyway, Tariq Nelson has uncovered some photos of an earlier Turkish president and his wife. The photos are over the fold, however I must warn any Turkish secularist readers that these photos may cause severe cognitive dissonance in some people.

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Here at Austrolabe we are always keen to extend our understanding of different cultures and to celebrate the diversity of the human family. In the spirit of free inquiry we present a short film by three English cultural anthropologists who adorn their totems with primitive tribal decorations and immerse themselves in an aboriginal culture rarely glimpsed by the outside world. Continue reading →

As Muslim communities have rapidly grown in the West there has been a proliferation of Islamic schools. These are schools where the state curriculum is taught to Muslim students in an “Islamic” environment accompanied by parallel Islamic education.

We have examined the issues involved in previous posts; here, here and here

The question that we ask our readers is:

Are Muslim pupils better served in Islamic schools or rather should they seek education in other independent or government schools?

In 2006, 12 young British Muslims with a history of criminality were sent on Ummrah to Makkah during Ramadan by the Birmingham city council. Their journey was recorded by BBC radio 4.

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Paul Johnson, the British polymath and author, is one of my favourite writers and Intellectuals is one of his most fascinating books. I had reason to revisit it today and the opening paragraphs caught my attention:

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We are very pleased to present a guest post from Ozrisk. This is a reprint of an article published in Business Islamica Magazine.

Since the first large-scale Muslim migration to Australia occurred in the early 1970s, the Islamic community has grown from just a few thousand, concentrated in the suburbs of Melbourne, to become the second-largest religious group in Australia. Substantial migration to Australia was initially from Lebanon, with other notable immigration coming from many Muslim countries, including Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Palestinian territories and, more recently, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The number of Australian residents identifying themselves as Muslim on the census increased by over 40 percent in the five years between 1996 and 2001, from 200,000 to 281,000. This growth has continued, to the point where the estimated number of Muslims in Australia was 350,000 in late 2006.

Baby Steps

However, Islamic finance is still in its infancy in Australia. Because of the nature of much of the migration here, many Muslims arriving in Australia have naturally been more concerned with how to provide for their families than with developing financial institutions. Nevertheless, several small ventures have started, with at least two currently in operation: the Muslim Community Cooperative (Australia) Ltd (MCCA) and Iskan Finance. MCCA is currently restricted to offering facilities to shareholders and cannot accept normal bank deposits under Australian law. Iskan works with a number of other providers and offers mortgage and leasing products.

Insurance is another area where a void currently exists. While there have been several attempts to establish Takaful funds, notably during the 1990s, these do not seem to have succeeded.

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