Seventeenth Column in Crescent Times - My Childish Mawlid ...

Muslims like me of Indian heritage make up one in four of the entire world’s Muslim population. The North Indian ones have their own unique sectarian divides that cannot be found among any other cultural Muslim group. And it’s around this time of year that these cultural divides become especially prominent.

Some non-South Asian readers will be familiar with controversies about the permissibility or otherwise of celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. In most nominally Muslim countries, there really isn’t any controversy. Everyone celebrates, with only minor variations between different groups.

But among South Asian Muslims, the meelad is always a source of controversy. Those who insist on doing meelad a certain way regard themselves as “sunni” and label anyone else as wahhabi or deobandi (a “sect” I doubt anyone in Indonesia or Bosnia has heard of). Those who prefer not to perform the meelad in that particular way label their opponents as barelvis (a “sect” I doubt anyone in Mauritania or Kazakhstan would have heard of) or qabar pujaris (grave worshippers) or ahl-i-bidat (innovators). Yes, it’s all gentlemanly good fun.

I grew up in a family where meelad was less about learning and applying sectarian labels and more about forcing your kids to attend boring functions and watching bearded boofy blokes sing devotional songs that none of us wheatbix kids could understand. The imams and uncles would give speeches in Urdu and occasionally in Hindlish (a special form of English unique to the Pakistani imams and the Pakistani medical doctors who dominated these proceedings).

But times have changed. On Saturday I went to a meelad function in Brisbane which was
largely in English. I looked forward to seeing how English-speaking Muslim communities kept the Indian meelad tradition alive. I looked forward to listening to songs kids of my nephews’ generation could understand. I looked forward to being spiritually energised by a lecture in English delivered in a manner my nephews would relate to.

And was I to be disappointed? You betcha! Some 2 hours was spent listening to naat devotional songs sung in Urdu so chaste that even Kevin Rudd would not be able to understand it despite his mastery of Asian languages. The singer was some dude whose claim to fame was that he was the nephew of a famous naat singer from Pakistan. And the name of the naat-nephew? Who cares?

At one stage, our naat dude asked the audience in Urdu: “How many people here can understand Punjabi?”. Two hands rose from the audience. Mine wasn’t one of them. This didn’t stop Mr Naat from singing an incomprehensible Punjabi hymn.

And if you think that was bad, the singer then decided he wanted to provide some entertainment for a group he described using the mixed Urdu-English phrase of yooth keh log (literally “people of youth”). His effort consisted of the following naat in words even the most eminent linguists may find difficult to decipher. Here is the chorus:

Svit Madeenah, svit Madeenah svit Madeenah
Veree lowlee

Finally the English-speaking imam stood up to speak. This chap claimed to be a barrister and Islamic jurist (“faqih”) whose main claim to fame was that he had some association with an institution in the UK called Hijaz College.

This young barrister-cum-faqih then decided to use the occasion of the Prophet’s birthday to remind the Prophet’s followers gathered that we are divided into 73 sects, 72 of which are headed for hell. What better way to celebrate the birth and life of the man who united Muslims of all sects.

I almost fell off my chair when the Pommy imam made this fantastic claim: “I have been giving lectures since I was four years old!” Amazing. Imagine what kind of wisdom would emanate from the mouth of a 4 year old. The following examples immediately come to mind:

“Mummy, for God’s sake, give me an ice cream!”

“Wallahi, that toy is mine!!”

And finally, this classic:

“Waaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!”

If the meelad event I attended proved anything it’s that, despite the level of discourse being rather infantile, not even the infants and kids found the proceedings at all interesting. They were outside listening to their iPods. I joined them. Kate Ceberano proved much more enlightening than the mob of manic mullahs on stage.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf




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COMMENT: An uncomfortable moment ...

Some days back I had the good fortune to perform my fajr (pre-dawn) prayers at a new institution established by a younging chap of Fiji-Indian extraction. The al-Mustapha Institute has been established by Noor-ul-Hassan Al-Hijazi, a graduate of Hijaz College in the United Kingdom.

Also present were a number of local Brisbane people as well as Hadhrat Imam Shaykh Afroz Ali, founder of the al-Ghazali Centre in Sydney and a qualified imam in the Islamic tradition. Regular readers of this blog will know that Allama Afroz was also once a graduate of the Islamic University of Madina, though his degrees seem to have been lost somewhere. Either that, or his studies have taken him to Madina and then onto somewhere else. You figure it out.

I couldn't help but ask the head of the Al-Mustapha Institute about his training. I asked him about ...

* where he studied;

* how many years he studied for;

* what subjects he studied;

* what qualifications he received;

* what form those qualifications took.

He answered all these questions without any hesitation. Indeed, he volunteered more information such as who some of his teachers were and even the nature of the graduation ceremony.

Sayyidina Ayatullah Afroz was present during these discussions, though he did look somewhat uncomfortable to say the least.

So will Maulana Pir Abul Bayaan Afroz provide us with details of his precise qualifications with the same degree of candor and honesty? I'm certainly not holding my breath.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf


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OPINION: Thirteenth Column in Crescent Times: Why should we bother writing for a Muslim newspaper?

One of the best books I’ve read this year is entitled Leave to Remain. It’s a memoir by an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Sydney. The author talks about his experiences growing up in a country wracked by civil war, his studies and work in the United Kingdom and his eventual settlement in Australia. Of particular interest to me was reading about how the author gets along with people of his own ethnic and religious heritage.

That author’s experiences are somewhat similar to my father’s. Dad completed his PhD in Canberra during the 1960’s before moving back to his home country of Pakistan. He was about to be transferred to what was then East Pakistan when he was offered a job in Sydney. Had that job offer not come through, he and his family may have been caught up in a civil war.

My father has an Indian Muslim heritage. He privately practices his faith. The author of Leave to Remain, Dr Abbas El-Zein, has Lebanese Muslim heritage. He publicly professes to be a non-believer. They could both be described as “Muslim migrants”. They both migrated in similar circumstances.

But can these migration experiences really be compared? Isn’t it like comparing chalk
and cheese? And isn’t comparing one Muslim experience to another a little silly?

Greg Sheridan, the Foreign Editor of a foreign-owned newspaper calling itself The Australian, doesn’t seem to think so. Recently he wrote a column suggesting we need to have a debate in this country about the desirability of having Muslim migrants. Or migrants from Muslim backgrounds. Or migrants from Muslim-majority states. He message wasn’t very clear.

Sheridan’s editor gave him the headline of “Uncontrolled Muslim influx a threat”. He acknowledged in the 4th paragraph that:

It is extremely difficult to talk honestly about Muslim immigration. All generalisations about it are subject to countless exceptions. Muslims are very different from each other.

Sheridan then proceeded to praise a book which made all kinds of outlandish generalisations in the service of a conspiracy theory that Muslims are on the verge of taking over Europe. It was real “Eurabia” stuff.

Apparently Muslim migration leads to certain problems for host societies that Sheridan describes as “the Muslim problems”.

These problems include: they outbreed us; they tend not to integrate, they have a strange kind of victimhood, they all seem to hate Jews.

Sheridan says that the solution is that we should not have uncontrolled Muslim immigration. Since when has Australia had uncontrolled Muslim immigration? Indeed, since when has Australia had an immigration policy that is built on religion? Yes, we had the White Australia Policy. But this policy did not stop Albanian Muslims from migrating here in the 1920’s or Yugoslav Muslims in the 1940’s and ‘50’s.

You’d think an experienced editor of a national newspaper would get his facts right. But sadly when it comes to issues even vaguely related to something vaguely related to something deemed Muslim, facts and logic are thrown overboard. This is what happens when we allow others to write our story instead of writing it ourselves.

If for no other reason than this, we need a national newspaper that reflects the diversity of opinion among those Australians who feel inclined to tick the “Muslim” box on their census forms. The newspaper you are holding in your hands or reading on your screens is put together by a bunch of writers and editors who disagree on more things than they agree on.

Yet we still are civil in our disagreements and appreciate each other’s criticisms. After all, as the greatest of men said, disagreements among his followers are a mercy from God.

So celebrate the first anniversary of the Crescent Times. And if you disagree with anything I or anyone else writes here, put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and give readers a piece of your mind. You’ll only be adding to our collective store of divine mercy.

Words © 2009-10 Irfan Yusuf


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OPINION: Fourteenth Column in Crescent Times: How to burn Swiss chocolate?

Next week, I’m organizing a huge bonfire. Hundreds of people dedicated to freedom of religion will be joining me. We have decided to show our solidarity with four Swiss minarets by burning the symbols of Swiss culture at our disposal.

Some will bring chocolate to burn. Others will turn the bonfire into a huge toasted sandwich by emptying their fridges of imported cheese.

Still others will be targeting cuckoo clocks. The wealthier ones will bring records of their secret bank accounts (I assure readers I’m not in that category).

I’m shocked that Muslims are not repeating the imbecilic spectacle that accompanied (or rather, that followed by 6 months) the publication of the Danish cartoons. Remember the burning of embassies? Remember the huge protests in Arab and other nominally Muslim countries where normally you cannot even sneeze without the secret police reading the contents of your handkerchief to make sure the blood and mucus don’t spell some criticism of the king or general or emir?

I doubt any crazed crowds will be protesting or burning Swiss embassies. Why? Because let’s be frank and honest about this. Where will the corrupt Muslim rulers store their ill-gotten and embezzled wealth if they tell their people to boycott all things Swiss? Which other country has such liberalized banking laws that allow corrupt despots to hide their loot?

Swiss Muslims are largely of indigenous European - Albanian, Bosnian and Turkish – extraction. Their mosques are likely to be designed along Ottoman lines, with flat domes and skinny minarets that look like scud missiles (and would probably be about as inaccurate if filled with explosives and launched). Ottoman mosques are modeled on the St Sophia’s Orthodox Basilica in what was once Constantinople. Apparently when the city was taken over by Fatih Sultan Mehmed, he ordered the Basilica to be surrounded by a bunch of minarets but otherwise left the structure intact. He also ordered mosques across the empire, including in European cities like Sarajevo, to be designed to resemble the cathedral/mosque.

And so mosques across the Ottoman empire resemble Eastern Greek churches. But where did Fatih Sultan Mehmed get the idea of minarets anyway? After all, the first mosques built by the Prophet in Quba did not have big tall minarets. Neither did his mosque in Madina. The minarets were added after he passed away.

So where did the minarets come from? Well, when the first generations moved out of Arabia, they modeled their mosques on the existing architecture. One of the oldest mosques in existence can be found in China. It was built by a companion of a companion (tab at-tabi’i). If you walked in the street where it was located, you could not tell it was a mosque from its architecture. Why? Because it looks just like a Chinese pagoda.

Similarly, mosques in Syria were modeled on existing Byzantine churches, which had towers for bells. Muslims also decided to build towers for their muezzins.

And so the minaret is little more than an act of architectural plagiarism. Muslims added minarets to mosques so that they did not stick out like sore thumbs in the environment.

The early Muslims were happy to build mosques that looked like the houses of worship of the dominant cultures where they settled. Australian Muslims, of course, don’t need to follow this precedent. We prefer building mosques that look like something out of 1965 Karachi. We cry “racism” when residents get upset at our insistence at always being different. Then we spend tens of thousands of dollars taking local councils to court. All for the right to build domes and minarets that our ancestors copied from churches and synagogues anyway.

Still, try telling moronic Swiss voters that they are seeking to maintain their Christian heritage by objecting to what are essentially (or at least historically) Christian religious symbols. It isn’t just their clocks that have gone cuckoo.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf


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OPINION: Fifteenth column in Crescent Times - Bloody politics of division in my birthplace ...

One of my relatives is visiting my birthplace of Karachi at the moment. She hopes to see siblings she hasn’t seen for years, in some cases, decades.

Visiting Karachi at this time is always a little risky. The city is an ethnic and sectarian melting pot. Ethnic Pathans (also known as Pushtuns) dominate the transport industry. Most other businesses are owned by so-called Muhajir - Muslims who migrated from various parts of India after the 1947 Partition. There are large Shia communities of various denominations, and the Sunnis are also fragmented in various ways. To give readers an idea of just how prevalent the sectarian divide is, the last time I was in Karachi during the mid-90’s, my cousin took me for Friday prayers one day. We had to walk past 3 mosques to get to the mosque. I asked my cousin what was wrong with the first three. “One is barelvi, the other is shia and the third are ahl-i-hadis.”

Back then, Karachi experienced a multilayered civil war. No one quite knew who fought who or why. There was conflict between rival factions of the Muhajir political party. Then there were Sunni and Shia groups fighting a proxy war on behalf of their respective Saudi and Iranian sponsors. One anti-Shia party called ASSP (which probably stood for the “Absurdly Silly Saudi Party”) fought pitch battles against the Shia TNFJ (which probably stood for “Totally Nuevo Funky Jihad”).

Exactly whose side you fought on depended on which conflict you were fighting. One day, you’d be in a trench with Ahmed shooting in the general direction of Javed and Ali from that nasty Muhajir splinter group. The next day, you and Javed were in the same trench shooting in the general Absurdly Silly direction of those nasty pro-Iranian TNFJ infidels Ahmed and Ali.

Now things have taken a definite turn for the worse. For my elderly relative to visit Karachi during Muharram took plenty of guts. Like many traditional Sunni families, we commemorate Muharram in certain ways. We fast on Ashura (the 10th day of Muharram when Imam Hussain was martyred along with most of his family at Karbala) and we also refrain from certain forms of entertainment.

Pakistan TV channels frequently have religious programs commemorating Muharram, which my parents in Sydney get to watch thanks to the dish on their roof. But this time Muharram in Karachi is bloodier than ever. Much blood is spilt during religious processions when men and boys perform rituals that many Shia religious authorities condemn as innovation. Still, these practices have entered South Asian Shia culture in much the same way as circling and prostrating to the graves of saints has entered South Asian sunni culture.

Thousands take part in these processions. Sometimes sectarian riots take place. But Pakistan right now has much bigger worries than sectarian rioting. When even traditionally anti-American religious party leaders are using phrases like “war on terror” in a serious fashion to describe the fight against the renegade Taliban, you know there’s an unusual level of strife.

According to one Pakistani politician, in thelast year Pakistan has now had more suicide attacks than Iraq and Afghanistan. One recent attack targeted the women’s section of the Sharia Faculty at the International Islamic University of Islamabad. Talk about the Taliban implementing sharia! More recently, the notoriously anti-Shia Taliban attacked a Muharram procession in Karachi, killing over 40 people. And the most recent episode was an attack on a volleyball game that killed over 80.

So will we have special security set up for mosques (especially Shia ones), educational institutions and volleyball grounds? No way. Don’t be surprised if Murdoch bloggers start suggesting it’s more important for our security that we perform cavity searches on non-white people for explosive underwear.

Pakistan’s terrorist attacks have received little coverage and have led to little reconsideration of our policy toward that troubled country. Pakistan is always blamed for terrorism in various parts of the world, and it’s as if Pakistanis dying from suicide attacks is treated as a case of “serves you right”.

Still, for my relative in Karachi, the inconvenience to her schedule has been most disturbing. She may not be able to see third cousins she hasn’t seen for 40 years, presuming she even knows they exist. Which hopefully means her kids can remain single until the next trip.

First published in the January 2010 edition of the Crescent Times.


Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf



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CONGRATS: To Mustafa ...

Mustafa Qadri is a lawyer and an upcoming journalistic voice who has been published in the UK, Australia and online. He recently got married to another young lawyer who once presided over the same campus Muslim Students' Assoc as yours truly. She also doesn't mind being referred to as an "Aussie Mossie".

Congrats to both, and we hope they have a long life together.

Words © 2010 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT/MEDIA: On Afroz Ali, Saudi qualifications & the ABC Compass Progam cont ...

Readers may recall this post regarding "imam" Afroz Ali's appearance on the Compass program on ABCTV in 2007.

Yours trully contacted the Compass program and there was some exchange of correspondence which I will reproduce here. The initial contact was as follows:

2 December 2007

G'day,

I occasionally write for various places (including NewMatilda.com). I noticed that in a recent edition of the Compass program, the following was said ...

Imam Afroz Ali is founding president of the Al-Ghazzali Centre for Islamic Sciences and Human Development in Sydney’s south-west. Imam Ali has qualifications from Saudi Arabia and he’s studied in other significant centres of Islamic learning. At the Al Ghazzali Centre he teaches Islamic sciences, jurisprudence, ethics and corporate citizenship.

Can you please advise as to where you obtained this information from. Was it provided to you by Mr Ali and/or someone from the Al Ghazzali Centre? Did Mr Ali advise you of which qualifications he completed in Saudi Arabia?

Regards
Irfan Yusuf

I have received a response from Sharon Connolly, the Story Editor, as follows:

6 December 2007

Dear Irfan,

Many thanks for your inquiry about the Compass program One Vote, Which Values.

Information about Imam Ali and his qualifications was provided firstly by Imam Ali himself in an interview with Compass producer Peter Kirkwood published in Tomorrow’s Islam, G.Doogue & P. Kirkwood, ABC Books, 2005, and from information provided on the Al Ghazzali Centre website last August (unfortunately the site seems to be under reconstruction at present).

My understanding is that Imam Ali has studied in a number of centres, including Saudi Arabia, the US, Yemen, Mauritania and, most recently, at Al-Azhar University in Egypt.

Whilst I am not aware of which of his qualifications come from Saudi Arabia , I understand that Imam Ali is qualified to teach in various Islamic Sciences.

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,

Sharon Connolly
Story Editor

I responded to Ms Connolly as follows:

5 December 2007

Dear Sharon,

Thank you for your response.

Did Mr Ali state that he had obtained a university degree from Saudi Arabia? Did he mention any specific university from which he graduated? Did he provide the year of graduation and the specific degree he obtained? Did he advise if the degree was an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification?

Regards
Irfan Yusuf

Ms Connolly responded as follows:

6 December 2007

Dear Irfan,

I am afraid that both you and Imam Ali have now alerted me to an inaccuracy in the narration for One Vote, Which Values.

In response to your email yesterday I was about to revisit the research files for the program this morning when I received an email from Imam Ali. He is currently in Cairo and though I have sent him a DVD copy of the program he has not yet received it. However as you’ll see in his message (the relevant passage of which I have copied below), Imam Ali has read the transcript of the program on the Compass website.

Imam Ali’s clarification is as follows:

Also, just as a quick note for your records, in the intro part of the transcript i was introduces as holding "qualifications" from Saudi Arabia . I just want to clarify that whilst i have studied in Islamic University, Madina, I did not complete my studies (due to a Wahhabist leaning of the teaching when I was there), nor do I reallu rely on that knowledge base. My qualifications as an Imam comes from Traditional source of one-on-one with Scholars. Just for future reference, if you need me for an interview again!!!!

I regret that there appears to have been a misunderstanding on my part, and hope that the above information clarifies the position.

Yours sincerely,
Sharon Connolly
Story Editor,
Compass

What a strange coincidence. Anyway, more questions were put to Ms Connolly.

6 December 2007

Dear Sharon,

Thank you for that. I would still be interested to know if at any stage Mr Ali did represent to you or anyone else that he had completed a degree or other qualification.

It is a representation that has been made in the past. For instance, in 2005 in New Zealand ...http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0506/S00251.htm

... Mr. Afroz Ali of Sydney, also well versed in inter-religious matters, holding degrees in Islamic Studies and Shari'ah from Islamic University, Madina, Saudi Arabia, thereafter continuing through traditional Islamic learning styles under scholars such as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf of the United States, Shaykh Salik bin Siddina and Shaykh Murabtal Hajj of Mauritania.

... and at the University of Western Sydney in 2004 ...

Mr Ali graduated in Islamic Studies - Sharia after studying in Islamic University, Madina Saudi Arabia ...

This shows the problems arising from the absence of a proper system of accreditation of imams. Perhaps an idea for a future episode?

Regards
Irfan Yusuf

Ms Connolly responded:

6 December 2007

Dear Irfan,

I haven’t myself seen a description of Imam Ali’s qualifications like those that you quote. I think my ideas about his qualifications came from the program researcher’s notes which say that he is a “qualified Imam” and that he “received licence to teach in various Islamic Sciences.” Those notes contain no more specifics about the qualifications, simply a list of countries (not universities) in which he studied.

I have been unable to contact the researcher concerned as she is no longer working with the ABC. However I understand that her information came from the sources I mentioned to you in an earlier email; basically the Al Ghazzali centre website, Tomorrow’s Islam and from discussion with Imam Ali.

There is however nothing in the material I have revisited to suggest that Imam Ali has misrepresented the case; rather I have erred (as his email points out) in suggesting that he has qualifications from Saudi Arabia. As I said earlier, I think this is a case of misunderstanding on my part.

I agree with you that - to the uninitiated at least - the system for conferring qualifications upon Imams is not perhaps as clear as for some other denominations, and have mentioned your program idea to the Compass Executive Producer.

Regards,
Sharon Connolly
Story Editor,
Compass

Perhaps the contents of these e-mails can be discussed separately.




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COMMENT: Fair Dinkum Pilgrimage

The following piece was published on the Aussie Mossie blog on Monday 9 January 2006.

In the past few days, around 2.5 million Muslims from across the globe have converged on the ancient city of Mecca in central-west Saudi Arabia to perform the various rites that form part of the Muslim pilgrimage tradition known as the “Hadj”.

On Tuesday 10 & Wednesday 11 January millions more will attend prayer services and gatherings in their local areas for the feast of sacrifice (known in Arabic as “Eid al-Adha”), the most important religious and cultural festival of the Muslim calendar. The feast commemorates an event mentioned in both the Old Testament and the Koran.

The Old Testament recounts how God ordered Abraham to show his devotion by sacrificing his own son Isaac. The Qur’an is silent on the identity of the son, though Islamic tradition suggests the proposed sacrificial son was to be the elder Ishmael.

Just as Abraham places the blade on his son’s throat, the command is given to sacrifice a ram instead. The rites of the Hadj conclude with pilgrims sacrificing an animal, following the example of Abraham. Hadj also involves a variety of other acts commemorating the sacrifices made by Abraham and members of his family to establish monotheism in the region.

These acts include circling a cubic structure known as the Kaaba (believed to have been built by Abraham) which is draped in fresh black embroidered cloth each year. Near the Kaaba are two hills (named “Safa” and “Marwa”), between which it is believed Ishmael’s mother ran to fetch water for her infant child. Pilgrims run between these two hills following in Hagar’s footsteps.

The highlight of the Hadj is the assembly on Mount Arafat, regarded as a preliminary to the gathering of all humanity on Day of Judgment. In January 2005, TVNZ reported that over 20,000 buses were used to carry a portion of the millions of pilgrims who made the journey last year.

At one time, travel to Hadj was a difficult and dangerous journey. American Muslim writer Michael Wolfe recounts the pre-jet-age perils of pilgrims in his book “One Thousand Roads To Mecca”, an anthology of 10 centuries of Hadj travel writing.

Wolfe’s characters include Ibn Battuta (Islam’s very own Marco Polo) who travelled by land and sea during the 14th century over some 75,000 miles and over a period of 30 years. Also included are “fake” pilgrims who smuggled themselves into Mecca defying its ban on non-Muslims entering its gates, such as Englishman Joseph Pitts who managed to sneak into Mecca undetected in 1685.

The journeys recorded also include the diary entries of an Australian woman Winifred Stegar who married an Indian merchant in Singapore. Her pilgrimage was performed in 1927, with she and her Indian husband running out of money and having to leave some of their children behind along the way.

Wolfe’s own Hadj journey, described in his book 1993 “The Hadj – An American’s Pilgrimage to Mecca”, was a much safer affair. Like most modern pilgrims, he travelled by air. The grandson of an Orthodox Jewish religious scholar, Wolfe adopted Islam after spending time in Morocco.

In many Muslim cultures, Hadj represents the culmination of a lifetime of devotion with the “Hadjis” (as those making the journey are called) leaving the journey until later years. It is said that a person’s entire adult life of sins is erased by a successful Hadj.

On the other hand, the delayed Hadj is also the subject of wry humour. Hadjis are often jokingly regarded as veteran sinners seeking a “quick fix” to their perilous spiritual status. An Urdu saying goes: “After eating several thousand mice, the elderly cat finally decides to set off for Hadj!”

But with hundreds of elderly Hadjis dying each year, and with an increased sense of religiosity amongst young Muslims, the average age of pilgrims appears to be decreasing.

In Malay and Indonesian cultures, it is traditional for Hadj to be performed in one’s early adult years. And amongst Australian pilgrims, young adults are also heavily represented.

Sydney’s Sun-Herald reported on December 11 2005 of a group of young Muslims from the Sydney Muslim heartland of Lakemba making preparations for the journey. One of them was Omar Abas, a 26 year old software engineer and a personal friend of the writer.

Omar’s father first went to Hadj at age 65, and his own decision to go for Hadj relatively young is unusual in the context of his parents’ Lebanese heritage wherein leaving Hadj to the end of one’s life “was the traditional Lebanese mentality. You live your life and do what you want, and then go to Hajj.

“For my parents' and grandparents' generations, religion played a small part in their upbringing. Today it’s different. Religion is very important to young Muslims because it is a way of life.”

For those Muslims not at Hadj, the time is one for feasting with family and friends. Non-Muslim readers with Muslim work colleagues should remind them of this fact at next week’s work lunch. But sorry, most of us won’t buy you a ham sandwich or a schooner of VB!

Words © 2006-09 Irfan Yusuf


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