The Attributes of Allah- VIII

“He is God: there is no god other than Him, the Sovereign, the Supreme-In-Holiness, Source of Peace, Granter of Security, Guardian over all, the Almighty, the Compeller, the Majestic (Al-Mutakabbir) …” (Al-Hashar 59 : 24).

Al-Mutakabbir is The Majestic, Conscious of His greatness. Allah alone has the right to know and to proclaim His greatness and omnipotence over everything and everyone. He magnifies Himself and sees grandeur and superbness only for Him. All greatness belongs to Him. This attitude is completely justified because it is true.

Allah is distinguished by an exclusive greatness just for Him and by an absolute Royalty. He controls everything. He is the one who shows His greatness in all things and by all means.

Know well [what will follow], O my brothers and sisters! Do not be fooled by the simple verbal intention that you give to the meaning of your life, because God hopes to see a radical transformation [in you which] change this.

He demands that you inflict a kind of death on yourselves, after which He will breathe new life into you. Make haste to promote peace among yourselves, to forgive your brothers and sisters their weaknesses, because the one who is not inclined to make peace with his brother is mean, and he risks being excluded [from the proximity of Allah] because he is a source of dissension.

Give up your base desires and don’t cultivate resentment. Even if you are right, behave humbly as if you were wrong, so that forgiveness is reserved for you. Eliminate obesity from your ego, because narrow is the door you have to go through. So eliminate your ego and pride so that you can go through that door.

Elections 2019: Whither Mauritius?

On the Forthcoming General Elections

As you know, Sunday, 06 October 2019, the Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth announced as a Breaking News the dissolution of the parliament and fixed the date of the general elections on 07 November 2019. He made this announcement after he made the launch of the Metro Express on Thursday, 03 October 2019 which was funded by the Government of India, and after a live speech from India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is right after the launch that Pravind Jugnauth - according to the instructions from his Gurus and counsellors - without thinking, on Sunday the 06 October 2019 in the afternoon made this announcement. By doing so, he applied his authority with such arrogance and announced the political registration for 3 days: Wednesday, 09 October to Friday, 11 October, and the Nomination Day on 22 October, and he fixed the date of the general elections on Thursday, 07 November 2019. He had plenty of time to announce the general election until March or April of next year.

He ignored dates such as 01 and 02 November which are public holidays, as well as the 03 November that falls on a Sunday, but instead, he chooses another day [in the middle of the week]. A panic and great fear took hold of him, lest he loses in the upcoming election, thus losing this power, especially with so many scandals in his government. So, on 06 October he announced the elections for the 7^th day of November. He only gave a delay of one month to hold the general elections. He does not give the other political parties time to prepare themselves properly. It is true that after five years (2014-2019) the National Assembly must be dissolved by the end of December 2019. I do not want to go into details on this subject, but what is deplorable is that the date chosen for the elections falls on a Thursday where there are exams that will take place on that day for the School Certificate (SC) and Higher School Certificate (HSC) students. So, on 06 October, the day of the announcement, the Election Commission officials had to find alternative places so as not to disturb the conduct of these examinations.

So, out of 9,41,719 voters, 104,903 voters will have to vote on 07 November in a different place from where they are used to. These are tactics that he [the current Prime Minister] is using so that young students of the SC and HSC do not have time to think about which political party they are going to vote for because they have to focus on their final exams which are very important.

Students who have exams scheduled will be very worried on election day where there will be a lot of traffic jams and so they may be late in their exam rooms. The vagueness persists a lot on this case. Young students of voting age show their disagreement and anger and say that the government has not thought about all this and then everyone will not have the chance to vote and that’s a shame.

In addition, traffic jams will certainly affect the candidates [students]. All of this will have a negative effect on their schedule. Other candidates say that it is a bad choice to hold the elections the same day as the exams, because the votes of the young people are very important.

For me (the Khalifatullah) the right to vote is to have the future of Mauritius in hand so that it does not fall into wrong hands. So all voters must make good choices, without the slightest trace of communalism. They have to go to the polls, they have to fulfill their civic right to elect people who are honest, and who are not corrupt and who are respectable, so as to have a better future, a better Mauritius, a clean Mauritius for our future generations.

Banning ‘Triple Talaq’ in India

In recent years, Muslim women in India have publicly raised issues of unfair treatment at the hands of their unjust husbands, triggering wider debates on the reform of Muslim personal law in a secular country. As it happens, an unscrupulous husband  makes an oral pronouncement or a simple declaration of 'Triple Talaq’ by sending an e-mail/mobile phone text message/WhatsApp/Facebook/Twitter posts, etc.- to his wife and such a communication would apparently result in instant and irrevocable divorce, valid for the purpose of the Muslim law.  For, ‘Talaq-e-Bidd’at’- an irregular form of divorce under Muslim Law- does seem to allow men to simply evade their marital obligations with their wives and to end the spouse relations without any regard for the ethical framework of the Qur’an and the Ahadith on matrimonial justice. Indeed, a grave distortion of the Islamic institution of divorce has been created in recent times by rotten husbands, leading to an unfortunate public perception that a Muslim husband may put away his wife at his mere caprice. Seeking to prohibit and penalize this kind of deviant practice -‘Talaq-e-Bidd’at’- that is tilted against Islamic values, women’s rights and gender justice;  India recently announced a new national legislation entitled the ‘Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019.   

The Future of Chagos and Agalega

The sovereignty of, and territorial rights over, the Chagos Archipelago is a matter of contention between Mauritius and the United Kingdom for more than half a century now. Before granting national independence to Mauritius in 1968, the retreating colonial power played shady games to retain its strategic interests in the Indian Ocean region. As it happened, two years before the granting of Independence, the colonial power decided to retain a land foothold in the region for the longer term and hence excised the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius. During the pre-independence political negotiations between Mauritius national leaders and the British government, the continued British-control over the Islands was legitimated through questionable deals- thanks to the obvious unequal bargaining power between the parties- the Conquerors leveraging their heft of power and their political subjects on the negotiating table desperately seeking freedom from colonial yoke. Through offering best relations beyond independence, paying 'peanuts' as immediate compensation and a vague promise of returning the Islands to Mauritius at an unspecified future date when the facility at the Islands would no longer be needed for 'defence purposes', Britain sought to retain its control over the Chagos Archipelago for the indefinite future. 

Responding to global shifts in power and the emerging equation with the US in the post-second World War/ Cold War  scenario, the UK later through a bilateral agreement, leased the strategic Islands to the United States for establishing its grand military base in the heart of the Indian Ocean- the Diego Garcia Naval Base. Almost in parallel, within a decade (1967-1973), Britain ensured that Chagossian villagers were systematically and stealthily ousted from their homes and lands permanently, without any opportunity of returning to their homeland forever! British national security and strategic interests trumped over the rights of poor and vulnerable islanders. Even as the Big Powers- the United States and the United Kingdom- consolidated their strategic interests and military control of the region, the hapless Chagossian people were left to languish in the wilderness of their own catastrophe- in mainland Mauritius, Seychelles,  the UK and elsewhere. No wonder, the British colonial excesses in the region continue to scar the national spirit of the formerly subjugated people, the Chagossians in particular.

The Little Girl of Kathua

'And when the baby girl who is buried alive will be questioned about; 

For what offence was she killed?'

                                            ---Surah Al Takwir, Ch:81: 9-10)

Last month, the kidnapping, gang-rape and brutal killing of an eight-year old little girl in Kathua, in the Jammu region, caused a national outrage in India. And the country witnessed a series of popular protests against the rising tide of horrific incidents of violence against women and girl children in recent years. The government’s woeful record of abject failures in dealing with the question of safety and security of women and girl children was highlighted in these mass mobilizations. Across several cities and townships, public meetings called for ending the prevailing culture of impunity around sex and gender-related crimes. That the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself was reminded on Indian women’s safety by well-meaning foreigners during his recent tour of Britain speak volumes about the national dishonour and humiliation these institutional failings represent for the people.

Greetings for Narendra Modi

In the course of his Friday sermon of 23 May 2014 ~ (23 Rajab 1435 Hijri) the Khalifatullah Hadhrat Munir Ahmad Azim Sahib (atba) of Mauritius took note of, and spoke briefly on, the recently concluded general elections in India and the consequent political changes unfolding in the country. The dismal fortunes of the long ruling Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty in the elections is in line with the larger global trend of popular anger against abuse of power and the cancer of corruption eating into the vitals of the polity and impacting on people's everyday lives. The extraordinary popular mandate for the leadership of Narendra Mody and his Bharatiya Janata Party, the right-wing, Hindu party in the country, presents him with an uncommon opportunity to serve the nation and the world. The Khalifatullah (atba) and the Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International, including the national branches of the Jamaat in India, wish all success for Narendra Modi in his great responsibility as the Prime Minister-elect of India.

Read the Extracts from the Friday Sermon:

Before ending, I would like to say some words on the recent parliamentary elections in India which have been those of all records. ( Inset: A polling officer (R) helps a woman to cast her vote at a polling station in Majuli, a large river island in the Brahmaputra river, Jorhat district, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam April 7, 2014. (REUTERS/Adnan Abidi). Spread over a period of Five weeks, the world's largest general elections  took place in India during April-May 2014, with over 600 million citizens eventually exercising their franchise). 

The vote count gave its verdict and the Hindu Nationalist Party of Narendra Modi celebrated a crushing victory while the Congress party was severely beaten. The Hindu Nationalist Party of Narendra Modi is promising a “new era” based on the boosting of the economy after ten years of having the Congress Party in power. This triumph of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reshapes the Indian political landscape, transforming the Hindu Nationalist Party in national political power at the expense of the Congress Party of Gandhi-Nehru dynasty which has been reduced to the bare; this being a hard blow to such a Party which was used to leading the country. But the BJP leader is viewed with suspicion by the Muslim minority since the 2002 riots in Gujarat.

Opposed to the BJP, the Congress party comes out of these elections worn out after ten years of power, scandals, corruption and they have been punished (by the people) for their repeated incapability to revive growth and curb inflation. It has quickly recognized its defeat and this could be the most scathing one in its history. The Gandhi-Nehru dynasty in India faces a fight for survival after an electoral drubbing at the hands of the opposition leader Narendra Modi.

In this century many dynasties are disappearing, Insha-Allah, be it at political level as well as at religious (spiritual) level (especially those who take themselves as the heirs of the religious power, as if they are glued to their seats of power, and they think nobody can get them out from there. They forgot that there is a Creator of the universe who holds absolute power. He does what He wills and He replaces what (or whomever) He wants.