Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Retreating or Reviving !

Last night me and one of my friend was talking about banning of Minarets in Switzerland.

He told me that he didn't get offended by this banning...hmm..let see what Minaret remind us :

A minaret is a tower that adjoins a mosque. The original purpose of a minaret was to allow a muezzin to call people to prayer in that neighborhood.

Some minarets are still functional in that regard although, with the use of public address systems, loud speakers today are frequently attached to the minaret instead. Most mosques have only one minaret, many of which are placed in the direction of the qibla, which shows the direction in which Muslims pray (toward the city of Makkah).

However, some mosques may have more than one minaret. Minarets are also somewhat like church steeples in that people can tell from a distance which building is the mosque.

He confirmed his statement by telling me that the earliest mosques were built without minarets, hadiths relay that the Muslim community of Madina gave the call to prayer from the roof of the house of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), which doubled as a place for prayer.

Around 80 years after Muhammad's death the first known minarets appeared.

He thinks that he don't need a MINARET to remind him of his being a Muslim.

1990, the Muslim population was 152,200, or 2.2% of the Switzerland’s resident population. A surprising development for those who know that in the early seventies, there were less than 20,000 Muslims living in Switzerland. Islam is now the second largest religion in Switzerland, after Christianity.

He got a valid point but being a second largest nation of a Switzerland, does this gives a positive sign if you are prohibited to exhibit your culture and tradition?

I know...people would say let it go. We don't need a minaret to be a Muslim we have so much enthusiasm for our religion and we will stick with it. But still when religion is a personal adoption, its human nature to be totally IN that adoption. Otherwise you will feel like fish out of water.

I mean how it would be like in Switzerland when it about adhan time and we cant hear it as it is banned? Isn't this will gives a little void feeling...? Like something is missing ??

But than I also discovered that there are only four total minaret exist in Switzerland even before it was banned publicly, it was not welcomed either.

According to the government, there are 130-160 Muslim cultural centres and prayer rooms in Switzerland, and four mosques with minarets:-
The Mahmud mosque in Zurich, inaugurated in 1963.-
The Petit-Saconnex mosque and Islamic cultural foundation in Geneva, opened in 1978.-
The Albanian Islamic cultural centre mosque in Winterthur, opened in 2004.-
The mosque of the Turkish cultural association in Wangen near Olten, inaugurated in 2009.

Why Pakistan felt the most about this banning is because in the inauguration ceremony of Mahmud mosque the high society turned out , including the former Pakistani foreign minister Zaffrullah Khan and mayor of Zurich Emil Landolt.

Which means that we are attached with Switzerland mosques and Muslims since than.

I don't know whether accepting the Switzerland's banning of Minaret is our retreating from culture and tradition or reviving that there were no minaret at the start of Islam so its not something on which ISLAM depends.

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Why don't you send the names and addresses of the most influential people to write to in Switzerland and let's all WRITE LOTS OF LETTERS. This planned ban is WRONG and no good for the entire world at large. I will help you get out these people to write on facebook, etc. And/or we could do a petition.

    Thanx so much for letting us know about this development. I LOVED this well-written and graciously or politely toned article with all the facts and without counter-productive anger. (I'm taking lessons from you, Thinking, on this!)

    Still, I LOVED the passion in which you wrote the following and I would surely hope such communication, if known far and wide, could help people to understand what believers like you feel and believe.

    Here are the parts I especially loved in this post:

    "I know...people would say let it go. We don't need a minaret to be a Muslim we have so much enthusiasm for our religion and we will stick with it. But still when religion is a personal adoption, its human nature to be totally IN that adoption. Otherwise you will feel like fish out of water.

    'I mean how it would be like in Switzerland when it about adhan time and we cant hear it as it is banned? Isn't this will gives a little void feeling...? Like something is missing ??"

    Thinking, this must be in that book you need to write for sure!

    Keep going with this well-balanced and unassuming style and about such substantial
    topics - both personal and universal. I simply love this approach.

    (I'm watching, listening, learning.)

    Your Enthusiastic Fan!

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  3. Dear Connie...thankyou.

    Yes I am planning to raise or develop a discussion on facebook about not liking the banning of minaret in Switzerland. I would appreciate if you helped me about the petition and how to write the influential people of Switzerland and to whom we can contact?

    Thank you so much to be with us and assuring your support all the time.

    Thank you so much for your comment.

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  4. Start out the draft version, Dear Thinking, and I shall try to help with a polished edition when possible.

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  5. Kamyabi (Success), a movie by the learned Pakistani filmmaker Pervez Malik, has a scene where the heroine wants to go back to Pakistan from Canada but the man she wants to marry, also originally from Pakistan, is giving her arguments in favor of staying back. Irritated at the end, he asks, "What problem do you have here, after all?" She looks at him for a beat, and then says softly, "Yahan azaan ki awaz nahin aati" (I don't hear the sound of azaan here).

    Quite interestingly, the actress who played this role was actually a non-Muslim: Shabnam.

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  7. "Yahan azaan ki awaz nahin aati" what a beautiful metaphor not only for reminders of "home" yet also for reminders of a spiritual "home"...

    Perhaps I may be permitted also to say there are many places here in the US today (and perhaps a few there as well?) where there is not much "spiritual chemistry" of place and people.

    Yet even on the most essential basis, everyone who loves the MINARET wherever it now exists(and the sound of the azaan) should rest assured they will have that reminder of spiritual home. The children as well - perhaps born without the entire spiritual gestalt of their parents homeland - would be most enriched - as would non-Muslims when they open their ears to hear.

    Beyond the ears alone - how about their impossible to replace beauty not to mention the history so easily ignored today by superficial societies and leaders?

    Thank you so much for the original post and for both you and Shafique Sahib for giving us a glimpse of this proposed travesty in Switzerland as well as the dilemma (gestalt even) of the "displaced" through a film vignette.

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  8. I am putting together a little book called "Spiritual Chemistry" to which some of you may wish to contribute about people, places, nature, art and the inner invisible and oft unheard (or sometimes not-felt-with flesh qualities) dynamics and "knowings" which make for this missing quality in so many kinds of relationships and venues.

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  9. "The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
    ~Randy Pausch

    It is only when we start imagining the loss we start taking care most.

    Shafique Sahib and Dear Connie.....thank you so much for your support as your presence assured me that I am on the right path.

    Dear Connie....I am writing the draft and will send you once it is completed via email.

    I hope to get your support all the time.

    May Allah help and guide us. And lead us to HIM only.

    To Allah be all glory.

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  10. Your faith brings tears and confirmation to me as well. YES, you most certainly are on the right path and your honesty beauty of soul and faith confirms for me as well WHERE the right path lies.
    YES to Allah be the glory and all our love sanctified through Him.

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  11. More regarding protesting Switzerland on their approach to the azaan:
    http://muslimmatters.org/2009/12/07/why-boycotting-swiss-cheese-is-not-a-good-idea/

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