Mrs. Karam Unnissa Begum, a scion of Intekhab Jung family, passed away Monday morning.
She was 87 years old. She was staying with her daughter Prof Shagufta Shaheen at Errum Manzil, an old neighborhood behind Taj Krishna.
According to her son-in-law Sajjad Shahed she had been suffering with a few health issues for quite some time. “She breathed her last at around 11-30 am today,” he said.
Mrs Karam Unnisa Begum was the daughter of Nawab Mir Mahmood Ali Khan and sister of Mr Abid Ali Khan, founder editor of Siasat Urdu Daily.
Her husband Mr. Mohammad Shafeeq Hussain Siddiqui who has passed away a few years ago.
She is survived by, besides Prof Shaheen, another daughter Mrs Surayya Tahseen and two sons Mr Rafeeq Hussain Siddiqui who teaches at King Saud University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Azaz Hussain Siddiqui who lives in the U.S. Mrs. Surayya Tahseen lives in Canada.
Her funeral prayers will be held at Maghrib at Masjid-e-Alamgir, near Shanti Nagar. She will be laid to rest in the nearby cemetery soon after.
Siasat.com
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News> Hyderabad / by Sana Sikander / March 16th, 2020
An order to this effect was issued by Deputy Secretary, Union Ministry of Home Affairs (department of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh affairs), Anandi Venkateswaran in New Delhi.
IAS officer Baseer Ahmed Khan. (File photo from ANI)
Baseer Ahmed Khan, a 2000-batch IAS officer currently posted as the Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir, has been appointed as the fourth advisor to Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor G C Murmu.
An order to this effect was issued by Deputy Secretary, Union Ministry of Home Affairs (department of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh affairs), Anandi Venkateswaran in New Delhi.
Approval of the competent authority is given “to the appointment of Baseer Ahmed Khan, IAS (JK-2000), as advisor to Lt Governor of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir…,” the order read.
It said the appointment would be effective from the date from which Khan assumes charge.
“The Lt Governor of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is requested to issue necessary orders with regard to the terms and conditions of his appointment under intimation to this ministry,” the order said.
On June 30 last, Khan and his twin brother Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Muneer Khan got an identical order of one-year extension of their service on a day they were retiring.
Former CRPF DG Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar, a 1983-batch officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, was earlier appointed as the advisor to the Lt Governor on January 5, while another IPS officer Farooq Khan and IAS officer K K Sharma were retained as advisors after Murmu took over as the first Lt Governor of Jammu and Kashmir last year.
source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today / Home> News> India / by Press Trust of India, New Delhi / March 15th, 2020
Mohammad Shareef began burying bodies after his son’s death / Mohd Shabbir
Mohammad Shareef never got to bury his son. Instead, he has spent the last 27 years burying the unclaimed sons and daughters of thousands of other families.
It took a month for police to tell Mr Shareef that his son had died, and even then, they couldn’t tell him where, or how.
All Mr Shareef knows is that his son, Mohammad Rais, was one of almost 2,000 people killed in the Hindu-Muslim riots which engulfed India following the destruction of a mosque on a disputed religious site in 1992.
Mr Shareef doesn’t even know where the 25-year-old was buried.
“Police told me his body had decomposed,” Mr Shareef recalled, almost three decades on. “We didn’t see his body. We only got his clothes.”
But a few months later, he would witness something which would change his life forever.
“One day I saw police officers throwing a body into a river. I was horrified,” Mr Shareef says.
Along with the horror, came a realisation.
“I think my son’s body might have been thrown into a river, just like other such dead bodies. That day I said to myself, from today I am the guardian of abandoned dead bodies and I will give them a proper funeral.”
Mr Shareef says his wife Bibi never recovered from the death of their son / Mohd Shabbir
Unclaimed bodies pile up in India for a host of reasons: they could be people who lost their lives in road and rail accidents, or people who died far from home – pilgrims, migrants, old people abandoned by their children.
Some impoverished patients die in hospital with no-one to take care of the funeral.
But what to do with the bodies? Back in 1992, many districts in India didn’t have a mortuary facility. It was fairly common practice to dispose of unclaimed bodies quickly.
Burial was the preferred method, but in some places in north India they dumped unclaimed human remains into rivers to save money, time and effort.
Mr Shareef’s family have long suspected that Rais’ body ended up in the Gomti river. It flows past Sultanpur, the city where the young man had been working as a chemist in December 1992 – the month when Hindu fundamentalists tore down the 16th Century Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Mr Shareef’s home, 65km (40 miles) away.
Rais went missing amid the bloodshed which followed.
“After my son disappeared I searched for him everywhere for a month, like a mad man,” his father says. “I didn’t find him anywhere. I even went to Sultanpur to look for him.”
Then came the news they had been dreading: their beloved son was dead. Mr Sharif and his wife Bibi were traumatised. His wife still struggles with periods of depression to this day.
The pain is aggravated by the fact they were not able to give their son a proper burial. It is a pain no one else should go through, Mr Shareef says.
“I decided that in my district, I wouldn’t let any unidentified body be thrown away into a river,” he says.
Shareef says he takes care of the unknown dead persons as he would a family member / Mohd Shabbir
In India’s caste-bound Hindu society, those who were at the bottom were historically forced to do the job of burial and cremations – and then treated as “untouchables” as a result.
But Mr Shareef – a bicycle mechanic by trade – was not to be deterred. He told the police about his desire to take up a task shunned by everyone else.
“When I got the first call, my heart was pounding. After the post-mortem, the police asked me to take away the body. I clearly remember that person’s neck was slashed.”
Soon, his workload started to increase. He even bought a four-wheeled cart to transport the dead.
Predictably his family members, friends and neighbours were taken aback. Even as a Muslim, Mr Sharif began to experience the same social exclusion as his Hindu colleagues.
“No-one in my family was happy at that time. They said, ‘you have gone mad’.
“Some people were afraid of me. They thought they would get infected with germs if they made physical contact with me.”
Yet Mr Shareef was resolute in his conviction. He had skipped family weddings, festivals and even prayers for the sake of unknown people. It gave him peace and solace: performing last rights is a moment to remember his son.
“It helped me to deal with the pain of my son’s death. I think about him all the time. I miss him.”
In the Hindu caste system, those who are relegated to the bottom of the pyramid are forced to assist with cremations and burials / Getty Images
It is not an easy job. Police often struggle to identify the body, which means they may have been dead for some time. Often it is not the bodies, Mr Shareef says, but the smell which is most off-putting.
“Whenever I see a badly mutilated or decomposed body it is difficult to sleep. I have nightmares and resort to sleeping tablets,” he explains.
“Sometimes police officials come with me to the cemetery but even they stand far away.”
All the same, he always takes the time to ensure the person is given the proper treatment, usually bathing the body.
If he realises the dead person is Muslim, he wraps the body in a sheet of cloth and recites the final prayers. If the body belongs to a Hindu, he takes it to be cremated.
No-one know exactly how many bodies Mr Shareef has buried. The head of Ayodhya district administration, Anuj Kumar Jha, told the BBC that they don’t have full records of the bodies handed over to Mr Shareef.
“Our rough estimate is we would have given about 2,500 bodies to him,” he said. Mr Shareef’s family say he has given last rites to more than 5,500 people.
Yet for years, he toiled without any financial support. To this day, he works in his bicycle shop, earning the equivalent of about $3 a day.
Mr Shareef continues to run his roadside cycle repair shop to provide for himself and his wife / Mohd Shabbir
But things are changing. He has been recognised for his dedication. The government has given him one of India’s highest civilian awards, while local shop owners now also help cover his expenses. At the age of 80, he is now able to have two paid assistants who are sharing his burden.
“Both Hindus and Muslims help me. People give me food and warm blankets. Recently I had to have an eye operation – a stranger called me and gave me 20,000 rupees [$290].”
But retirement is not something he is willing to consider. Neither his two surviving sons nor grandchildren want to follow in his footsteps, and he is acutely aware of what will happen if he stops doing this work.
“If I am not there, police will throw the bodies into rivers as they did before.”
For a man who some call the “saviour of the dead” that would be unbearable.
“I will continue doing this till my last breath,” he says.
source: http://www.bbc.com / BBC / Home> News> Asia / by Swaminathan Natarajan & Khadeeja Arif / BBC World Service / March 13th, 2020
Today, we remember these 5 powerful Indian Muslim feminist writers, who wrote boldly of issues that were considered taboo, shattering gender roles and stereotypes in their fierce writing and the politics they advocated for.
Watch this video detailing the life and times of luminaries like Ismat Chughtai, Rashid Jahan, Begum Rokeya, Wajida Tabassum and Qurratulain Hyder. #IndianWomenInHistory
source: http://www.youtube.com /
source: http://www.feminisminindia.com / Feminism In India (FII) / Home> History / by FII Team / November 09th, 2017
Nida Allam has become the first Muslim woman to be win elected office in the state of North Carolina.
According to local reports , history was written on Tuesday night when voters in Durham County went to the ballots to elect Allam as their next county commissioner.
Allam said in a statement provided to The Hill that, growing up as a Muslim in the U.S., she “never thought running for office let alone winning and making history would ever be a possibility.”
“I was driven to politics in 2015 after my best friend Yusor, her husband Deah and younger sister Razan were brutally murdered in their home in Chapel Hill in a hate crime committed by their neighbor,” she said. “This was a heinous act of hate that caused ripples across the world.”
Allam was referring to the murders of Deah Barakat, 23, his wife, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister, Razan Abu-Salha, 19. The three college students had been living in a condo in Chapel Hill, N.C. when a man, Craig Stephen Hicks, entered their home and killed them.
Local authorities initially claimed the shooting incident was over a parking dispute, but the chief of the Chapel Hill police department, Chris Blue, apologized years later, saying “the man who committed these murders undoubtedly did so with a hateful heart.”
Hicks was ordered to serve three life sentences without possibility of parole after pleading guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in 2019.
Allam said in her statement that her “community suffered deeply” after the deaths of her friends.
“How can I be content with all the blessings I have been given in this world when there is so much to do to fight injustice, uplift one another and to make our communities healthier. I’m fighting for a better nation so that others don’t have to suffer the pain my community did,” she said.
During her campaign, Allam pushed for police reform, better quality education and wage increases for county workers, among other issues.
Prior to her run for local office, she worked as a political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign. She also served as third vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party and chair of Durham Mayor Steve Schewel’s (D) Council for Women.
The historic first in North Carolina comes years after voters saw a record number of Muslim candidates run for statewide or national office in 2018, the highest in nearly 20 years at the time. That was also the year Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) became the first Muslim women elected to serve in Congress.
source: http://www.thehill.com / The Hill / Home / by Aris Folley / March 05th, 2020
Alhaj Dr. Mohammed Ziaulla (64), retired Urdu Professor and a resident of Sathagalli, passed away yesterday at his residence.
He leaves behind his wife, one son, two daughters and a host of relatives and friends.
Namaz-e-Janaza will be held at Masjid-e-Azam on Ashoka Road after Moghreeb Salath today, followed by the burial at the Muslim Burial Grounds near Tipu Circle, according to family sources.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Obituary / March 11th, 2020
Mysore , KARNATAKA / Moscow, RUSSIA /Paris, FRANCE / London , United KINGDOM :
A LIFE of a British spy princess who was the first woman radio operator to be sent into Nazi-occupied France has been commemorated to mark International Women’s Day.
Noor Inayat Khan (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Noor Inayat Khan is the most highly decorated Muslim woman in British Military history and was only aged 30 when she was executed in Dachau Concentration Camp in September 1944 after being captured by the Gestapo in Paris the previous year. Like 20,000 others who have no known grave she is remembered at the Runnymede Air Forces Memorial. Now her life and legacy has been brought to a new audience in a digital exhibition Noor Inayat-Khan: A Woman of Conspicuous Courage created by Commonwealth War Graves Foundation and the girl guides.
It tells how the unlikely spy came to die for her country and the courage she showed under torture while visitors will be able to put their code breaking skills to the test and discover the technical skills a wireless operator needed behind enemy lines.
Jasmine Theti, 15, of Girlguiding Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, said: “We must never forget her and the sacrifice she made.
“I loved learning the Morse Code it was good fun.
“Although I wouldn’t have liked sending messages in a cold Parisian park whilst looking over my shoulder all the time. Noor was an inspiration.”
Noor was born on New Year’s Day 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother and was a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan, the 18th century Muslim ruler of Mysore.
The family moved to London then Paris where she was educated and worked as a children’s author.
After the fall of France, she and her brother escaped to England and in November 1940 she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force becoming a radio operator at RAF Abingdon.
But the fluent French speaker soon came to the attention of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and in late 1942 was recruited.
Noor Inayat Khan, left, with her mother (Image: Shrabani Basu/ PA Wire)
However they were unsure whether she would make a good agent, worried she was too honest and kind-hearted and couldn’t blend into a crowd.
She proved them wrong when she joined the Paris resistance in July 1943 just as the Gestapo were closing in.
While members were rounded up she evaded capture and ended up as the only SOE radio operator for the whole Paris region.
But two days before she was due to be replaced in October she was betrayed and arrested.
Remarkably she twice managed to escape from the Parisian prison before being sent to Germany the following month where she was kept in chains and in solitary confinement for 10 months.
Resisting repeated torture she and three other women SOE agents were finally taken to Dachau and shot on September 13, 1944.
For her courage she was posthumously awarded Britain’s highest civilian bravery medal The George’s Cross in 1949.
Julian Evans of the CWGC which looks after the Runnymede memorial added: “Noor’s story is an inspirational one and we believed it important, as the custodians of the memorial on which her name is inscribed, to help give it greater prominence.
“We hope that the exhibition will encourage more people to visit the Air Forces Memorial to explore the story of Noor and the 20,000 other members of the Commonwealth Air Forces who are commemorated here.”
source: http://www.express.co.uk / Express / Home> News> UK / by Tony Whitefield / March 08th, 2020
Majbhita Village (Azamgarh District ), UTTAR PRADESH :
The coin has an image of Lord Ram, Sita and Hanuman inscribed on it and its value is said to be several lakhs of rupees.
Syed Mohd Islam, a Muslim man living in Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh district, has decided to gift an ancient coin made of ‘ashtadhatu’ (eight metal alloy) for the Ram temple construction in Ayodhya.
The coin has an image of Lord Ram, Sita and Hanuman inscribed on it and its value is said to be several lakhs of rupees.
According to Syed Mohd Islam, who lives in the Sitaram locality, he has found the coin while he was reconstructing his ancestral home in the village.
“On November 30, 2019, when the plinth of the house was being dug, we found these two coins. I decided to gift them for the temple construction. I will soon be going to Ayodhya and will hand over the coin to Mahant Nritya Gopal Das who is the chairman of the Ram Teerth Kshetra Trust that will construct the Ram temple,” Syed Mohd Islam said.
However, recently, when he went out for some work, his wife Kaneeza Fatima went to a local jeweller and sold off one coin for Rs 3 lakhs.
Syed Mohd Islam further said that he will request the Mahant to sell the coin and use the amount in construction of the temple.
Syed Mohd Islam hopes that his contribution to the construction will encourage other Muslims to make similar contributions and present a perfect example of communal harmony.
source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today / Home> News> India / by Indo-Asian News Service, Azamgarh / March 07th, 2020
Directed by Priyadarshan, Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham features the popular actor Mohanlal and was reportedly made on a budget of Rs 100 crore, making it the most expensive Malayalam film ever.
Directed by Priyadarshan, it features the popular actor Mohanlal and was reportedly made on a budget of Rs 100 crore, making it the most expensive Malayalam film ever.
On March 26, the big-budget film Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham (Marakkar: The Lion of the Arabian Sea) will release in Kerala and elsewhere. Directed by Priyadarshan, it features the popular actor Mohanlal and was reportedly made on a budget of Rs 100 crore, making it the most expensive Malayalam film ever.
Last month, a petition was filed in the Kerala High Court against the film, alleging ‘distortion of history’ and demanding a stay on the release. The court declined.
What is the film about?
It is a war film depicting the heroics of the Marakkar clan, whose leaders were naval chieftains of the Zamorin of Calicut during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Zamorin, Samoothiri in Malayalam, was the title given to rulers of the Calicut kingdom on the Malabar coast. The Marakkars fought against Portuguese invaders for nearly a century.
Who were the Marakkars?
By some accounts, they were of Arab origin and had migrated from Tunisia to Panthalayani near Koyilandy in present-day Kozhikode, and later moved to the region around present-day Kottakkal and Thikkodi near Payyoli. By other accounts, the Marakkars were descendants of affluent businessman from the Cochin kingdom who migrated later to Calicut.
Historian M G S Narayanan said the name ‘Marakkar’ could have originated from maram or marakkalam, meaning ship, as these families lived along the coast and used ships. Alternatively, it could have originated from the Arabic word markaba, meaning those who migrated via ships. “The Marakkars were mostly Muslims, but in some parts, they have been found to be Hindus as well,” Narayanan said.
What was the war against the Portuguese about?
Faced with invading Portuguese ships, the Zamorin reached out to the Marakkars to defend the coast. They were led in succession by four Marakkars, chief admirals who were appointed by the Zamorin with the title of Kunjali. Related by bloodline, they were Kuttyali Marakkar (Kunjali Marakkar I, appointed in 1507), Kutty Pokker (Kunjali Marakkar II), Pathu Marakkar (Kunjali Marakkar III) and Muhammad Ali Marakkar (Kunjali Marakkar IV, appointed in 1595).
“Their strategy was similar to guerrilla warfare. The Portuguese had massive ships which could not make easy manoeuvres in the sea. The Marakkars used small ships which could easily surround the Portuguese ships, enabling the fighters to attack at will,” Narayanan said.
In the span of 100 years, the exploits of the Kunjali Marakkars are said to have improved the naval fleet of Calicut as well as other kingdoms, stretching from Saurashtra to Ceylon along the Indian coast. War technologies and ammunition greatly improved as well.
Who is the ‘Lion of the Arabian Sea’ depicted in the film?
Mohanlal plays Kunjali Marakkar IV, who earned his reputation with his fierce onslaught on Portuguese ships, the favours he gave those who fought against the Portuguese, and his efforts to strengthen the fort at Kottakkal.
When he took charge in 1595, relations between the Zamorin and the Marakkars were deteriorating. The Zamorin was feeling threatened by Kunjali Marakkar IV’s popularity, and by reports (said to be spread by the Portuguese) that he was planning to create a Muslim empire.
In 1597, the Zamorin signed a peace treaty with the Portuguese and attacked Kottakkal fort. For months, the Marakkars resisted the attack by the Zamorin’s Nair soldiers and the Portuguese fleet. Eventually, as Portugal sent more forces and the Zamorin mounted his effort, Marakkar surrendered to the Zamorin on the assurance that their lives would be spared. But the Portuguese violated the terms, arrested him, took him to Goa and beheaded him.
Why was a petition filed against the film in the High Court?
Mufeeda Arafath Marakkar of Koyilandy, who identified herself as a descendant of the Marakkar clan, argued that the the film’s version of events could mislead students and researchers. Among the contentions is that Kunjali Marakkar IV is shown to have romantic interests when there is no such evidence in history. He is shown sporting a picture of Lord Ganesh on his turban; the petition contends that he was actually a pious Muslim who did not display Hindu imagery.
The High Court declined to impose a stay and asked the film certification Board if it had handed over the complaint to the Centre. The Board conveyed that the subject deals with art and that it cannot interfere in the freedom of expression of the filmmakers.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Explained / by Vishnu Varma / Kochi, March 09th, 2020
