A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of the far-right. Right across the continent, extremist political parties are attracting millions of votes. They now have solid representation in national and European parliaments. They receive strong doses of, to use the words of the late Margaret Thatcher, ‘the oxygen of publicity’ from the media, and their leaders are regarded as having something important to say.
The List
If you subscribe to the ‘Foreign Policy’ list, and think that Malala Yousafzai and Aung San Suu Kyi (who is happy to turn a blind eye towards the massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar) are ‘global thinkers’, then you are clearly not living on the freethinking planet.
In the pre-revolution days, Syrians were ever ready to list ten of their favourite picnic spots, ten of their much-loved restaurants, or even ten of the sects participating in the imaginary happy mosaic. Today, lists of traumatisation leap to the mind: the ten largest refugee camps, or ten major massacres, or perhaps ten of the numerous new militias.
There is One God, One Prophet and, allegedly, one international Muslim community – the ummah. There are five daily prayers and five pillars of Islam (profession of faith, zakat, prayer, fasting during Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj, at least once in a lifetime). There are six, for Sunnis, Articles of Faith (belief in One God; the angels of God; the books of God; the prophets of God; the Day of Judgment ; and the supremacy of God’s will), seven circuits around the Kaaba (when you actually get to Mecca) and seven verses in the Fatiha, ‘the Opening’ chapter of the Qur’an, which has 114 Surahs or chapters. The Prophet had twelve wives; and the Shia have twelve Imams.
A list of the type of Muslim men you may encounter in a typical gathering anywhere on the planet.
‘Malaysia, truly Asia’, declares the advertisement for the Malaysian airline.
Al-Andalus is not a culture and a period that exists simply in a remote past. Its achievements can be experienced when we visit a restaurant, admit ourselves to hospital, travel around the world, yearn for spiritual enlightenment, argue about religion and science, and struggle for a multicultural society.
A country allegedly and perpetually on the edge of chaos. A nation shrouded in darkness, thanks largely to power cuts, toxic religion, feudal politics, a corporate military and the ever present threat of violence. A state teetering on economic collapse, political fragmentation and imminent breakdown. Is there anything to love about Pakistan? We think there is.
Thanks to the wonders of technology, delivered courtesy of Western civilisation, Muslims can now fulfill their religious duties with relative ease. There are all sorts of brilliant gadgets out there, designed to ease the burden of the pious and ensure they face the right direction, perform their ablutions properly, read the right duas (prayers) when entering or leaving the toilet, pronounce the Arabic words correctly, and fulfill their numerous rituals according to prescribed tradition. So here is our selection of ten pieces of kit no self-respecting Muslim should be without.