Flashes from the Muslim World

The second Qur’an Congress of the International Association for the study of the Qur’an is to be held in New Delhi, 12-18 December, 1982. The congress hosted by the Indian Institute of Islamic Studies arises from an earlier Conference on ‘The Qur’an through 14 centuries’ held in Canberra under the auspices of the Australian National University, 13 May, 1980.

The theme of the second congress is described as “The Qur’an in the 15th century Hijra—Challenges and Reponses”.

A summary military court recently sentenced a civilian magistrate, a medical doctor and an engineer to flogging for watching “obscene” films on video cassette recorder.

They were among 17 persons sentenced to flogging, fines and jail-terms for violating Pakistan’s motion picture ordinance. In the first such case of its kind in the country, police arrested last month a number of persons, including seven women, who were watching films in a private house which the local press said was being run as a vice den in Multan.

It was the first in the five-year history of President Zia ul-Haq’s military regime that a civil court magistrate has been tried and sentenced to be flogged. The case is aimed at discouraging a growing fashion for watching smuggled video films that have not been through Pakistan’s strict censorship.

The federal Shari’ah court has ruled that there was no prohibition in the Qur’an or the Sunnah about the appointment of women as quadhis, judges or magistrates.

Mian Tufail Muhammad, president of Jamaat-e-lslami Pakistan, sent a cheque of Rs. 150,000 to the PLO ambassador in Islamabad assuring him of the full support and solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

• During the past three years, a sum of Rs. 1,250m (about £ 60m) have been distributed as zakat, according to President Zia. He also said he expected the Ushr (agricultural levy under the Shari’ah) would bring in at least Rs. 3500m (about £ 167m) for similar distribution among the needy population.

• A state-concern, the Pakistan Engineering Co, will shortly start manufacturing Chinese style diesel engines for agriculture in collaboration with the China National Agricultural Machinery Corporation. The Karachi Shipyard has built two 4,5OOt bulk cargo carriers for China.

Bangladesh and Pakistan have decided to give favoured-nation treatment to each other in bilateral trade and to increase the present annual volume of S 120m bilateral trade. They have also agreed to set up a joint chamber of commerce
and a joint shipping company and to improve air service schedules between the two countries.

The Yang Di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Al-Musta’in Billah, as head of Islamic religion in Malaysia had his happiest moment in Keningau in, the state of Sabah when he was asked to lead the conversion of 315 local people to Islam, including the member of parliament for the constituency Michael Tembakau who took the name of Ahmad Shah in honour of the Agong.

Sabah and Sarawak, the two states of East Malaysia have many Christians and also many religiously uncommitted people. Michael Tembakau was a Christian before he embraced Islam at the hand of Yang Di-Pertuan Agong.

A Seventh-Day Adventist Church on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the state of Sabah in East Malaysia, bought by the United Sabah Islamic Association (USIA) for $1 million in 1973, is now also the headquarters of the 16,000 strong Chinese Muslim Association of Sabah.

The unique thing about this mosque is that the huge words SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) permanently done on the wall of its minaret (formerly tower) are still retained, but the meaning of SDA has been changed into the words “Selamat Dunia Akhirat” meaning “safe in this world and the next”.
The people still call it the SDA mosque.

Haji Sulaiman said that the main activities of the Association include organising regular religious talks and da’wahactivities among Chinese Muslims and non-Muslim Chinese in various towns and places in the State. They now have six branches in KudaL Sandakan, Tawau, Labuan and Tenom.

They also organise regular religious classes in Chinese and distribute literature on Islam both in Chinese and English. They employ eight muballighs (preachers) for their work and several of these trained muballighs were sent by PERKIM in Kuala Lumpur. They have also sent 24 young Chinese converts, both boys and girls, to study in various Islamic religious institutions in Peninsula Malaysia, financed by the Sabah Foundation. In addition to this, four young Chinese Muslims have been sent to study at the Madinah Islamic
University, Saudi Arabia. They will be employed to streng then the Da’wah activity among non-Muslim Chinese in Sabah when they return home.

The Justice Ministry is amending Thai law to give Muslim judges in four southern provinces (states) the same status as non-Muslim ministry judges throughout Thailand, a ministry official said here recently.

The move is an attempt to provide more autonomy in legal matters to Thailand’s Muslim minority, the official said.

The new law will cover Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and Satan provinces, raising the status of the Muslim civil code which had been subordinate to Thai law during its 36 years of implementation, the official said.

The code differs from Thai law in matters of the family and inheritance. According to the new law, Muslim judges must have at least secondary education and must be tested on knowledge of Islamic law.

The official said the cabinet had approved proposals from the Muslim committee of Thailand and the local administration department to jointly issue marriage and divorce certificates, and register surnames of Muslims.

Fourteen persons, 11 Koreans and three Filipinos, converted to Islam recently before Jeddah Sharia Courts’ President Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-lssa.