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JULY 2019 I Concur With Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah That Ahmadis Are Muslims Page 13

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www.lahoreinternational.comwww.lahoreinternational.com1 Monthly LAHORE International Monthly LAHORE International 2 www.lahoreinternational.com CONTENTS 4 Editorial : My Unforgettable Journey to the Holy Land 5 The Man Who Designed Pakistan’s A Bomb 10 Fleeing Persecution, Ahmadi Muslims Find Safe Haven In Nepal 11 The Runaways By Fatima Bhutto — Burns With Indignation 12 Nestle Is Sucking The World’s Aquifers Dry EDITOR IN CHIEF 13 I Concur With Quaid-e-azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah That Mohiuddin Abbasi Ahmadis Are Muslims 14 German Court Orders Fines For ‘sharia Police’ Group 15 Worst Exploitation Of Islam In Pakistan 16 UK: Victorians Who Became Muslims 20 UK: A British Gp Hounded Out Of Medicine By Muslim Claims 21 Forgotten Muslim Soldiers Of World War I ‘silence’ Far Right 23 Bad math-big blunders 24 Norway Island wants to be time free zone Sikh Elders Won’t Let Anyone Demolish Mosque Despite Zero EDITOR 25 Muslim Population Zakaria Virk 26 Canada: Quebec’s New Secularism Law Bans Religious ASSISTANT EDITOR Symbols Munazza Khan 28 USA: Qasim Rashid & Ghazala Hashmi Win Virginia Senate ASSOCIATE EDITOR Primaries Amina Nuzhat 29 Saudi Arabians Mona Shabab And Saud Al-eidi Praised After Reaching Everest Summit SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER Syed Mubarak A. Shah 30 USA: Paterson NJ Police Welcome First Hijabi Officer Ph: 0047-91698367 31 USA: Louisville KY Airport Named After Muhammad Ali, The ADVERTISING MANAGER Greatest M. Sultan Qureshi 32 UN Demographic Report Ph: +1(461)433-0112 33 USA: A Rare Tour Of The Tunnel That Is Ground Zero For A Nuclear Waste Controversy

Issue : JUNE, 2019 Send Your writeups at Disclaimer Price : UK Pound 2, per copy [email protected] The views and opinions expressed Annual Subscription : 24 UK Pound Write to: in this magazine are those of the Email : [email protected] Monthly Lahore International authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of magazine. Phone : +44 794 007 7825 www.lahoreinternational.com 3 Monthly LAHORE International Editorial My Unforgettable Journey to the Holy Land had the privilege and once in a lifetime opportunity with cool air flowing. There were families with to visit the Holy Land in May of this year. For all children offering salat and some kids running around. my life I had seen the iconic symbol golden roofed Hundreds of columns with white stripes reminded me IDome of the Rock in the pictures, on TV and read of Cordoba mosque, which must have been modeled about the Haram al-Sharif in the books. This was the after this mosque. place which I had the burning desire to visit and pray I sat down near the water fountain and soaked in as there. I was awestruck at first sight just as I was when much serenity from this holy place as I could. I looked I saw the Holy Kaaba for the first time. I was ecstatic around at the hundreds of trees there was so much when I entered the compound and saw the holy places peace. It was time for Asr I saw people coming out with my own eyes. This piece of land is sacred due to its from the streets going to the al-Aqsa Mosque, built in significance of Jerusalem (the holiest city to Judaism), 8th century. I saw a trench on which it was written in as the historical region of Jesus’ ministry, and as the Arabic that it was dug up by Maulana Salah al-dunya site of the Isra and Mi’raj event that took place in c. wa-aldin sultan al-Islam wal Muslimeen. The entrance 621 CE. This was also the first Qibla of Islam. to the trench was closed with rocks. During my visit I was blessed to offer nawafil at all We left the complex with a heavy heart, not knowing three holy places – dome of the rock, masjid al-Aqsa if ever I will come back. Walking through an army and masjid Marwan – all located in 35 acre compound checkpoint we walked few hundred feet in a narrow of Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount). street of a long souq - market, turned In Qubba al-sakhra there is huge left and there was the Wailing Wall, a rock surrounded by fence and in place of prayer and pilgrimage sacred one corner is the rock from where to the Jewish people, built in 19 BC miraj took place. It is covered with a as part of Second Jewish temple. At wooden case but there is a hole at the the end of the souq is Church of the bottom I put my hand in and touched Resurrection. the rock. The golden dome of this Next day we went by train to Haifa magnificent structure is phenomenal. to visit Mahmud mosque in Kababir Masjid Aqsa is located not too far and the fabulous Baha’i gardens. The from the octagonal shape glittering imposing mosque is standing on a Dome of the Rock (completed in hill which I had spotted sitting in 692), take the stairs down to the the train. We were warmly received compound, there is a huge round by Murabbi Shamsuddin Chaliyan. water fountain for wudu. One enters … Next month my visit to Haifa/ the building; it is unbelievably serene Kababir. and peaceful. I walked around the Zakaria Virk, Editor entire building, there were believers reading Quran, some offering salat, and there was one group offering salat in congregation. There are Quranic verses written all over the walls and windows, some stained glass. When you come out of the Masjid on the right is the Marwan-e--Masjid – without any sign. It is built on hundreds of rock columns – each rock must be one tonne. Around 7,000 believers can offer salat here. It is all underground, so it is naturally air-conditioned

Monthly LAHORE International 4 www.lahoreinternational.com THE MAN WHO DESIGNED PAKISTAN’S A BOMB

By Pervez Hoodbhoy

THEORETICAL PHYSICIST RIAZUDDIN DIED IN SEPTEMBER. PITY NO ONE NOTICED. When Riazuddin—that was his full name— died in September at age 82 in Islamabad, international science organizations extolled his contributions to high-energy physics. But in Pakistan, except for a few newspaper lines and a small reference held a month later at Quaid-e-Azam University, where he had taught for decades, his passing was little noticed. In fact, very few Pakistanis have heard of the self-effacing and modest scientist who drove the early design and development of Pakistan’s nuclear program. Riazuddin never laid any claim to fathering the bomb—a job that requires the efforts of many—and after setting the nuclear ball rolling, he stepped aside. But without his theoretical work, Pakistan’s much celebrated bomb makers, who knew little of the sophisticated physics critically needed to understand a fission explosion, would have been shooting in the dark. A bomb maker and peacenik, conformist and rebel, quiet but firm, religious yet liberal, Riazuddin was one of a kind. Mentored by Dr. Abdus Salam, his seminal role in designing the bomb is known to none except a select few.

www.lahoreinternational.com 5 Monthly LAHORE International Spurred By Salam book, Theory of Weak Interactions in Particle Physics, coauthored with C. P. Ryan and Robert E. Marshak, Born in 1930, Riazuddin and his twin brother, became a bible for physicists. Fayyazuddin, were often mistaken for each other. Like other lower middle class Muslim children living Another exceptionally important piece of work by in religiously divided Ludhiana, they attended the Riazuddin was done together with Fayyazuddin, who Islamia High School run by the Anjuman-i-Islamia became a prominent physicist in his own right. This philanthropy. The school had no notable alumni, work became widely known in physics literature as and was similar to the town’s single public and two the Kawarabayashi-Suzuki-Riazuddin-Fayyazuddin Hindu-run schools. Nothing suggested that these Relation. The Pakistani and Japanese authors had done two boys squatting on floor mats, laboriously writing their respective work separately. Kawarabayashi and Urdu alphabets on wooden tablets, were to become Suzuki acknowledged that they only became aware anything special. of Riazuddin and Fayyazuddin’s work after they had completed their own. The Relation has stood the test In March 1947, as the creation of Pakistan from India of experiment, but even today continues to tantalize drew close, communal riots engulfed the Punjab. physicists—because it works so much better than it Neighbor turned against neighbor; the soil was really should. drenched with blood as entire populations migrated from one side to the other. Riazuddin’s family entered Atomic Enterprise Pakistan from the Wagah border in early October. The The story of Pakistan’s bomb, at the least its early brothers enrolled at Lahore’s MAO College but soon beginnings, is well known by now. In the aftermath moved to Government College, where they performed of Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in December 1971, well but not spectacularly so. A teacher suggested that President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto convened a meeting Riazuddin study physics rather than engineering. in Multan on Jan. 20, 1972, to which the country’s Riazuddin agreed, and Fayyazuddin followed. preeminent scientists were invited. Bhutto exhorted This rather uninteresting situation changedthem to make an atomic bomb, a desire he had first dramatically in 1951 when Salam came to town. Then articulated in 1965. Now, it would be a means of 25, Salam was a rising star in the world of high-brow avenging national humiliation. I. H. Usmani, then physics having just solved an important problem in chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, quantum field theory, a newly emerging subject that opined that making the bomb was beyond Pakistan’s was beyond the comprehension of all but the top- reach. Bhutto did not want to hear that. Usmani was ranking physicists of the time. For his research on unceremoniously replaced by Munir Ahmad Khan, an “overlapping divergences,” Salam was awarded the ambitious young engineer with more diplomatic and Adams Prize and offered a professorship at Cambridge personal skills than engineering or scientific expertise. University. He declined the offer and signed up instead Usmani’s apprehension was reasonable. In 1972, the as a professor of mathematics at Government College. atomic bomb appeared well out of Pakistan’s reach. In Lahore, one of Salam’s first initiatives was to Creating the weapons that laid Hiroshima and Nagasaki introduce a course in quantum mechanics at Punjab to waste had required enormous effort and resources. University. Drawn by his reputation, students The Manhattan Project, with its secret beginning in flocked to it; but only Riazuddin and Fayyazuddin 1939, eventually employed nearly 130,000 people and could survive the tough mathematics involved. A cost about $26 billion. Some of the finest minds in disheartened Salam never taught the course again. But physics gave their undivided attention to splitting the he had already identified the twins to be the best and atom and, in the process, generated new technologies brightest of those he encountered. Riazuddin was later and scientific ideas. Even if Pakistan could somehow invited to become his Ph.D. student at Cambridge. marshal the physical resources, how on earth could it Helped by Salam, Fayyazuddin went to Imperial get the required intellectual resources? College London a couple of years later. Time was on Pakistan’s side. Every passing year was The rest is history. As a student at MIT in the 1970s, I putting the bomb within the grasp of more and more would sometimes be asked by my professors if I knew nations. Once concealed under multiple layers of Riazuddin, to which I replied yes with some pride. His secrecy, the science behind the bomb slowly started to Ph.D. thesis in 1958 on certain regularities underlying make its way out into the open in scientific literature. nuclear forces had been noticed as a piece of important By the 1970s an enormous amount of such information work, but his subsequent works elevated him to the was accessible; and physicists with sufficient breadth ranks of the world’s better known physicists. His 1968 of understanding could do the job. Monthly LAHORE International 6 www.lahoreinternational.com dollars. When Pakistan exploded its bomb in 1998, Riazuddin was pleased but not joyous. Armed with his recent findings, Riazuddin returned to brainstorm in 1973 with his colleagues at Islamabad Riazuddin, who was then Pakistan’s leading physicist, University (later renamed Quaid-e-Azam University). was abroad pursuing a scientific collaboration at the By this time I was a junior faculty member there. The time of the Multan meeting. But his twin, Fayyazuddin, rest of us were dimly aware that something big was was present on the occasion. He shared with me his going on. We knew that the university was being used recollections of Multan: Bhutto’s call to action was not as a front organization for buying banned equipment. as emotive as were his public speeches. But, he recalled But it took decades for the whole truth to emerge. with some amusement, how the assembled scientists From Riazuddin’s group, even those physicists who sought to outbid each other as though at an auction. were in the know slowly dropped out. Fayyazuddin Tumbling over one another, each rose to declare that was not interested but Masud Ahmad, who had he could make the bomb even faster than the last just obtained his Ph.D. in physics under the twins, speaker. At that time none had any idea of what this became the second member of Riazuddin’s team. He work entailed. A professor of experimental physics at went on to head a much bigger group eventually and Government College, Rafi Chaudhry, emphatically was decorated with the Hilal-e-Imtiaz after the 1998 claimed that only experimental physicists could nuclear tests. The third member was Tufail Naseem, make the bomb. To this, Salam—who was there at who assisted in programming the huge IBM360 Bhutto’s special invitation—responded by saying that located in the mathematics building. the nuclear programs of the U.S., Britain, India, and other countries had all been headed by theoretical The calculations Riazuddin carried out were tedious physicists. and complex. The plutonium route had been closed for now and Munir Ahmad Khan had tasked him Soon thereafter, perhaps around September 1972, with the following problem: his bomb must use Salam summoned Riazuddin to his office at the the absolute minimum amount of highly-enriched International Center for Theoretical Physics in uranium, and certainly no more than 20 kilograms. As Trieste, Italy. He had decided that Riazuddin was to a particle physicist he had a reasonable understanding design the bomb and, immediately upon his return to of nuclear physics, but knew no hydrodynamics or Islamabad, must create a group of theoretical physicists how matter behaved under extreme compression. who would explore various technical aspects: the This knowledge is crucial for designing an implosion conceptual design for a nuclear device, calculation bomb because the high explosive surrounding the of the critical size of the fissile core, working out of a bomb’s core creates a shockwave that makes jelly out triggering mechanism, and finding the explosive yield of even the toughest metal. These unfamiliar things for a variety of theoretical designs. Salam had already had to be learned from books and papers. Like any discussed the matter with Munir Ahmad Khan, with good theoretical physicist, Riazuddin refused to whom he had a warm relationship. Riazuddin should accept what the computer churned out until he could be given this task, Salam said. Khan agreed; and verify it by using some clever analytical techniques. Riazuddin dutifully complied. Kicking the Closet Riazuddin set about his assigned task by scouring available literature. He first went through the Pakistan’s successful nuclear tests of May 1998 declassified Manhattan Project report. His scientific were the joint result of many who worked on its visits to the U.S. became more frequent. In 1973, myriad aspects—mining, conversion of uranium to he patiently studied documents at the Library of uranium hexafluoride gas, enrichment, metallization, Congress, and purchased photocopies of a substantial explosives, device fabrication, testing equipment, etc. number of unclassified or declassified reports from But everything really starts with the design, the very the Technical Information Service in Virginia. Of first step of any complex project. particular value was a series of lectures, declassified Arguably, the Chinese bomb design that Pakistan in 1965, delivered by nuclear physicist Robert Serber. received sometime in the 1980s—and which the The primer, addressed to members of the Los Alamos Americans say had been passed on by Dr. A. Q. Khan Laboratory, proved immensely valuable. While it did to the Libyans and Iranians—made the work easier. not contain detailed, classified information, it laid I do not think the Americans are lying when they out all the conceptual issues and turned out to be an say they confiscated the detailed bomb drawings in excellent starting point for Pakistan’s novice bomb 2004 together with other nuclear materials from the designers. The total cost was only a few hundred ship BBC Cargo. In fact, around 1994 or 1995, Munir www.lahoreinternational.com 7 Monthly LAHORE International Ahmad Khan whispered to me confidentially, while physicists like Salam is to uncover nature’s secrets at we sipped tea in his drawing room, that the Americans the very deepest level; they think that applications of had angrily told him that Pakistan possessed detailed such discoveries, if any, matter less. Even if they had Chinese blueprints and drawings. But even these not developed the world’s first atomic bomb, Robert drawings would have been nearly useless without a Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, and Enrico sound understanding of the underlying theory. The Fermi would still have been enshrined in the history Libyans, given the same drawings, could do nothing of physics for discovering fundamental principles. with them. Moreover, tuning weapons for different Information from multiple sources suggests to me yields or exploring different warhead options without that Salam did not do any bomb calculations himself. sound theoretical physics would have been impossible. As a frontrunner in the world of physics, he was after Pakistan erupted in mass jubilation on May 28, 1998— bigger fish, not merely retracing the footsteps of his the day the bomb came out of the nuclear closet. illustrious predecessors. And so he tasked his student, Pakistani videos and TV programs of the time show Riazuddin, with setting up a group of theoretical Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulating cheering physicists. Although he lost power and influence in citizens. The euphoric press compared this historic Pakistan after 1974, Salam continued to favor the moment with the birth of Pakistan in 1947. Pakistan’s bomb and to strongly push for its development. Those bomb makers became national heroes. School involved in bomb-design calculations were frequently children were handed free badges with mushroom invited to Trieste to use its ample library facilities. clouds, poetry competitions around the bomb were Earlier, Salam had advised the PAEC to purchase a organized, and bomb and missile replicas were plutonium reprocessing plant from France. That deal planted in cities up and down the land (most of these fell through after the Indian tests of 1974 and the replicas were removed during the Musharraf years). growing suspicion that Pakistan would travel India’s The bomb had attained mythical status; it became an route. article of faith for the guarantee of national security Riazuddin recalls that around December 1973 he had into perpetuity. accompanied Salam and Munir Ahmad Khan to the Riazuddin was pleased but not joyous. He accepted Wah Explosive Factory and met its head, Lt. Gen. quiet congratulations from his former colleagues, Qamar Ali Mirza. He saw TNT for the first time, with whom he had ceased to have a working and recognized from the Manhattan Project report relationship many years ago, and he also accepted that an explosive called Composition B was used. a high government award, the Hilal-e-Imtiaz. For The Directorate of Technical Development group, Riazuddin, the bomb was a necessary evil, and a cause created by Munir Ahmad Khan, and later headed by for worry. Pakistan and India were heading toward a Riazuddin, carried out experimental work on the high debilitating and dangerous arms race. What could be explosives needed for triggering implosion, explosive done about it? lenses, fast detonators, as well as on the necessary Some weeks after the 1998 tests, Riazuddin wrote neutronics and electronics. to Sharif pleading that Pakistan should now sign Riazuddin was gentle and unassuming, the sort who the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile couldn’t hurt a fly. So what made him go for designing Material Cutoff Treaty. The first would prohibit more nuclear weapons, each of which could easily snuff out test explosions, which in any case were not essential, a hundred thousand lives? Was he like Oppenheimer, while the second would limit the size of the nuclear who had felt uncomfortable after Hiroshima and arsenal and prevent a sharp upward spiral in warhead subsequently refused to work on the bomb? numbers, costs, and dangers. As quid pro quo, he said, I do not think so. Apart from the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, Pakistan should insist on nuclear-power technology Riazuddin accepted various government awards transfer from the West. He received no reply. Quite given to him by the government for his “services to possibly Sharif did not know how much the bomb the nation,” a euphemism for his bomb work. His owe d to Riazuddin. unpublished notes, which I have seen, also do not Nuclear Burden reveal regret; in fact, these exhibit some measure of Many Pakistanis think that Salam was opposed to satisfaction over having done the job right. His mentor making the bomb. Some say he played no role in and ideal, Salam, was a very different personality. it. This is wrong—he did want Pakistan to have the Unlike Riazuddin, he was articulate, assertive, and bomb, but felt that he had more important things to do fully capable of defending his turf. Two very different than work out its minute details. The job of theoretical people agreed that the bomb must be built. Why?

Monthly LAHORE International 8 www.lahoreinternational.com One can only guess at the motivations: it is generally toward advocating world peace, disarmament, and true that scientists who participate in defense-related turning “swords into ploughshares.” By the late 1980s, work achieve positions of much greater importance I think he would have preferred to forget his initial and wield much clout. (Certainly, Oppenheimer and contributions to the bomb. Teller were the most sought after scientists in their Riazuddin was not an Ahmadi, but was accused of days. Salam also admired Homi Jehangir Bhabha, a being one—a well-tested and easy way for jealous fine physicist and fierce nationalist who was the force detractors to defame and endanger a rival. Why else, behind India’s nuclear program.) In those days one they argued, was he so close to Salam? Riazuddin could be an Ahmadi and a Pakistani nationalist, and shrugged off the allegation. But his world, like Salam’s, Salam was both. He bought into the idea of rapidly had also opened wide through international travels. modernizing the nation under Gen. Ayub Khan, Riazuddin’s scientific collaborators were many— becoming the government’s science adviser. American, British, Italian, and Indian. This stands in Riazuddin was accused of being an Ahmadi. Why else sharp contrast with A. Q. Khan and Mubarakmand, was he so close to Salam? neither of whom had Indian collaborators. Their work, It is interesting to compare the attitudes of Pakistan’s although also essential for bomb making, was entirely various bomb makers. Dr. A. Q. Khan and Dr. Samar concentrated on the engineering and managerial Mubarakmand, Pakistan’s much celebrated scientists, aspects. frequently articulate in public their strong, visceral Quiet Rebel anti-Hindu feelings. This can perhaps be understood By nature a conformist rather than a dissident, from the gut-wrenching partition of India, when Riazuddin was a religious man who said his prayers five Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims mass-slaughtered times a day. His instincts were to agree and obey rather each other. On the other hand, Salam and Riazuddin than argue. But he was also a technology enthusiast. never exhibited such hatreds—even though Jhang, His expectation, which seemed a tad unrealistic to Salam’s birthplace, and Ludhiana, Riazuddin and me, was that the advanced technology demanded Fayyazuddin’s birthplace, had seen some of the worst by the bomb would automatically usher in a new atrocities. Was their attitude different from that of technological age for Pakistan and strongly boost local other nuclear scientists because of their exposure to research and development. To his chagrin, nothing the wider world of science? of the sort happened. Instead, even components that Salam coauthored works with several scientists who could be made locally were imported and reverse were Hindu. While in Italy, one of his most productive engineering was rewarded. Worse, undocumented scientific collaborations was with Jogesh C. Pati of the financial transactions led to massive corruption University of Maryland, resulting in the famous Pati- within the nuclear establishment. His bomb-related Salam Model for proton decay. When Salam received budget in the 1970s had been just a few thousand the Nobel Prize for physics in 1979, India immediately dollars, of which he had to give complete accounts to conferred on him a national award. (I suspect few of the PAEC. But later, undocumented millions would Salam’s Indian colleagues knew of his nuclear past.) be spent without a trace. Pakistan’s then-president Gen. Zia-ul-Haq would Clashes with the establishment became frequent grudgingly honor him a year later. after Riazuddin became director of the National That Salam eventually distanced himself from Center for Physics at Quaid-e-Azam University. He Pakistan’s nuclear program is no mystery. He had no sought to make the center a nucleus for Pakistani and option. Parliament’s 1974 decision to declare Ahmadis international scientists. It would, he hoped, provide heretics was a sharp turning point for him and his intellectual leadership, have an open atmosphere, and community. Every religious minority in Pakistan is would be closely modeled along the lines of Salam’s hounded and harassed, but none is more relentlessly center in Trieste. But, with real controls resting persecuted than the Ahmadis. In retrospect, they had elsewhere, the center eventually became a mere erred fatally by raising the demand for Pakistan. appendage of the national-security establishment, The older Salam was a different Salam. Although I had staffed by retired colonels and brigadiers, and forced met him a few times beginning in 1971, it wasn’t until to bow to their pressures. Not unexpectedly, its role in 1984 that we actually engaged. On the one hand, he nurturing physics has been minimal. had grown more attached to his faith, a fact that led Crisis followed crisis. One of particular seriousness to some tension in our conversations during my visits involved me as well. In 2006, for unclear reasons, to Trieste; on the other, he became more inclined Riazuddin’s bosses took fancy to a particular kind www.lahoreinternational.com 9 Monthly LAHORE International of machine known as a Van de Graaf accelerator Fleeing persecution, Ahmadi or Pelletron. This had been used in the early days of nuclear research and, although it had doubtful Muslims find safe haven in research utility, came with a hefty price tag of over Rs. 400 million. They decided to extract this sum from the Nepal Higher Education Commission, which was then flush. - Tsering D Gurung, Kathmandu Upon reading in the newspapers that this albatross Kathmandu’s Muslim community usually gathers at the was purchased in the name of my department, I Kashmiri Jama Masjid in Jamal for Jummah, or Friday prayers. immediately protested with HEC’s top management, But not all Muslims feel welcome at the landmark mosque. who defended the plan and told me that Riazuddin Followers of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam, the Ahmadis, say had signed off on the proposal. Horrified, I called they prefer to keep to themselves because they don’t want to Riazuddin. He admitted that he had succumbed to “stir any trouble.” pressure “from above.” “It’s not that we’ve received any outright threats against our But to his credit Riazuddin decided then to stand community here,” said Sajeel Ghouri, representative of the up and fight to prevent the import of a useless piece Ahmadiyya Nepal Sangh. “It’s just that we don’t know what they may do if they find out we’re Ahmadis.” of costly junk. The peeved czars of the nuclear establishment brought in their troops—nearly The Ahmadiyya Muslim community was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, an Indian religious leader, in 1889. 150 technical personnel from the PAEC, Kahuta The Ahmadis believe him to be the promised messiah, Research Laboratory, and the National Engineering or messenger, a belief that puts them at odds with other and Scientific Commission filled the auditorium of mainstream Muslims, and has resulted in their persecution in the physics department of Quaid-e-Azam University several countries, including Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. in 2007. None among them knew anything about In Nepal too, the community whose history can be traced the scientific purposes of the Pelletron, nor cared. to the mid-1990s, has faced some backlash. Older members They came solely with instructions to abuse and recounted to the Post how they were subject to harassment insult Riazuddin and myself, often using crude at the hands of their neighbours who deemed them ‘infidels’. language. The short of it: the Pelletron was imported But they are also quick to point out that these incidents are a thing of the past and they no longer have issues with any other and installed. It stands at the center as a monument community. to shortsightedness and willful wastage, with no “People initially thought that Ahmadis were removing significant scientific output. A second one, installed Muslims from Islam,” said Qamrul Huda Ansari, a Birgunj at Government College, Lahore, saw a similar fate. resident, who said that he had to relocate to a different village Riazuddin paid the price for his dissidence: he lost his due to mistreatment by other villagers. “But I think these job. misconceptions have now been cleared and we no longer face A quintessential scientist who patiently worked on the type of harassment that we did earlier.” his calculations until almost the very end, Riazuddin Less than 5 percent of Nepal’s population is Muslim and of published his last physics research paper in 2013—a that, Ahmadis make up less than 0.00008 percent. According to the association’s estimates, around 800 Ahmadis live in the remarkable feat for an 82-year-old. For one who had country. A quarter of them are refugees from Pakistan who helped set Pakistan on its nuclear path, the farewell fled the country fearing persecution. Riazuddin got from a bomb-loving nation was “In Pakistan, we were not allowed to read the Quran, perform surprisingly low key. The country’s powerful nuclear the Namaz or call Azaan,” said Wazia Iqbal, a Pakistani and security establishment was clearly not willing to Ahmadi, who came to Kathmandu nearly seven years ago. celebrate a man who had rebelled against it. “But here, we can practice our religion without any fear.” Dr. Hoodbhoy is the Zohra and Z. Z. Ahmed Pakistan outlawed the sect with a series of constitutional distinguished professor of physics and mathematics at amendments and ordinances passed between 1974 to 1984. Under Pakistani law, Ahmadis are not allowed to Forman Christian College University, Lahore call themselves Muslims. Doing so can land them in jail. http://newsweekpakistan.com/the-man-who- Ahmadis also face several barriers in obtaining government designed-pakistans-bomb/ identification and travel documents. When applying for these documents, Pakistani citizens have to declare non-allegiance to the founder of the sect. https://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2019-05-29/ fleeing-persecution-ahmadi-muslims-find-safe-haven-in- nepal.html

Monthly LAHORE International 10 www.lahoreinternational.com The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto — burns with indignation

By Fatima Bhutto

convincing and sensitive and Monty lead wildly contrasting portrayal of the poor and lives. Anita is the daughter of a downtrodden in Pakistan maalish wali — a masseuse for andA England What drives young wealthy women — and lives in a people to join terrorist organisations slum. Across the city, Monty attends like Isis? How does it feel to be told the American School and spends you’re worthless by society and summers in London where his super- locked out of the opportunities rich parents own vast properties. afforded to a privileged few? These The novel’s third, and arguably most are some of the questions at the heart complex, protagonist is Sunny who, of The Runaways, the second novel while growing up in Portsmouth, on by Fatima Bhutto. It’s highly topical, England’s south coast, is desperate arriving amid the controversy for his Indian father’s approval, surrounding Shamima Begum, the confused about his own sexuality teenager from east London who travelled to Syria and subjected to racism at school. “All his life,” to join Isis in 2015, and Bhutto writes with feeling Bhutto writes, “Sunny never felt he belonged in and authority about the complexities of such Portsmouth.” cases. The author moves confidently between her This should come as no surprise; politics protagonists’ viewpoints and through is in Bhutto’s blood. Her grandfather different settings. She is as adept at Zulfiqar Ali and aunt Benazir describing boys selling mynah were both prime ministers of birds at traffic lights in Pakistan, while her father Karachi, as she is at evoking Murtaza, an opponent of the streets around Fratton Benazir’s government, Park, which are “littered was assassinated when with greasy tissues”, after Bhutto was 14 (in her a Pompey football match. memoir, Songs of Blood She understands her male and Sword (2010), Bhutto characters as much as her accused her aunt of “moral women, and is astute about responsibility” for his the mix of bravado and murder). insecurity that characterises More surprising, perhaps, is Fatima Bhutto young men’s attitudes to sex. Bhutto’s ability to write sensitively Sunny tries to conceal his attraction and convincingly about the poor and to men by having casual, occasionally downtrodden in a novel that tells the story of violent sex with girls. Monty’s world is turned three young people in Pakistan and England. upside down when he falls for a mysterious new girl at his school. The book begins in Karachi where, in 2016, Anita www.lahoreinternational.com 11 Monthly LAHORE International In Anita’s story, Bhutto displays a keen eye for the Nestle is sucking the world’s injustices and indignities of poverty. In Karachi, for example, Monty’s mother’s maids are “purged” aquifers dry on a whim and casually condemned to destitution. In Knightsbridge, there’s a fleeting but poignant By Aaron Gilbreth scene when Monty sees a couple carelessly toss a At Bloomberg Businesweek, Caroline Winter visits Nestlé’s bot- tling plant in Mecosta County, Michigan to analyze how the coffee cup into the road where an elderly Sikh man multinational corporations targets small communities with is sweeping: “[The Sikh] kept his eyes downcast, promises of jobs, and buys up public land to gain control of wa- away from the couple, adjusting himself around ter resources. Nestle sold $7.7 billion dollars worth of bottled them.” There are other sharp sketches of urban life water last year, making it the world’s largest bottled water com- in which Bhutto encourages the reader to consider pany. the cumulative toll of such ignominies. It made that money partly by paying a pittance for its product. Nestlé pays the U.S. Forest Service only $524 a year to draw 30 In his book Age of Anger (2017), the journalist million gallons of public water in San Bernardino, California, Pankaj Mishra, whom Bhutto thanks in her and Nestlé pays the city of Evart, Michigan just $250,000 a year acknowledgments, described the way grievances for its water. Consumers drink bottled water because they as- can build up in marginalised people with sume it’s safer than tap, but that makes us complicit in what catastrophic results. A virulent form of social many analysts and activists warn is the gradual privatization of resentment, Mishra argued, has caused violent water. These multinational corporations don’t have the public’s upheavals for centuries and is a factor in the best interests in mind, activists warn. If anybody should own water, it’s the public. convulsions shaking the world today. In The Nestlé has been preparing for shortages for decades. The com- Runaways, Bhutto takes the cultural conditions pany’s former chief executive officer, Helmut Maucher, said in a diagnosed by Mishra and dramatises their effects 1994 interview with the New York Times: “Springs are like pe- on individuals who feel rootless and, as Anita troleum. You can always build a chocolate factory. But springs says, “unseen”. you have or you don’t have.” His successor, Peter Brabeck-Let- It’s no spoiler to say that these feelings are mathe, who retired recently after 21 years in charge, drew crit- icism for encouraging the commodification of water in a 2005 exploited by jihadis who lure Bhutto’s trio of documentary, saying: “One perspective held by various NGOs— protagonists to join the fighting in Syria and Iraq. which I would call extreme—is that water should be declared a Their lives overlap as the plot moves towards a human right. … thrilling denouement. In the meantime, Monty The other view is that water is a grocery product. And just as wilts in the desert sun, Sunny’s angst threatens every other product, it should have a market value.” Public out- to propel him to acts of monstrous violence and rage ensued. Brabeck-Letmathe says his comments were taken Anita is transformed into somebody else entirely. out of context and that water is a human right. He later proposed All three are representative figures, worn down by that people should have free access to 30 liters per day, paying global capitalism and preyed upon by charlatans only for additional use. promising revenge and redemption. Compared with the water needs of agriculture and energy pro- duction, the bottled water business is barely responsible for a The Runaways offers an unflinching look at key trickle; in Michigan, it accounts for less than 1 percent of total subjects of our time and the riveting story of three water usage, according to Michigan’s Department of Environ- memorable characters. The novel is particularly mental Quality (DEQ). But it rankles many because the natural perceptive about the way that inequality is an resource gets hauled out of local watersheds for private profit, incubator for alienation and anger, and it burns not used in the service of feeding people or keeping their lights on. There’s also, of course, the issue of plastic pollution. with controlled indignation at the state of our In the U.S., Nestlé tends to set up shop in areas with weak water world. It is an involving and satisfying novel, with regulations or lobbies to enfeeble laws. States such as Maine and the caveat that its ending feels unresolved. But Texas operate under a remarkably lax rule from the 1800s called perhaps this story, for some characters at least, “absolute capture,” which lets landowners take all the groundwa- has more distance left to run. If so, the prospect of ter they want. Michigan, New York, and other states have stricter a sequel is tantalising. laws, allowing “reasonable use,” which means property owners can extract water as long as it doesn’t unreasonably affect other The Runaways, by Fatima Bhutto, Viking, wells or the aquifer system. RRP£14.99, 432 pages Laws vary even within states. New Hampshire is a reasona- https://www.ft.com/content/204cf306-3691-11e9- ble-use state, but in 2006, the municipality of Barnstead became 9be1-7dc6e2dfa65e the first nationwide to ban the pumping of its water for sale else- where. https://longreads.com/2017/10/04/nestle-is-sucking-the-worlds- aquifers-dry/

Monthly LAHORE International 12 www.lahoreinternational.com I Concur With Quaid-e- Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah That Ahmadis Are Muslims

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

he poison of ignorance and extremism How many Sitara Akbars have been expelled that Bhutto and General Zia jointly from our schools for being Ahmadis? How fathered during their dictatorial many productive citizens of this republic Tregimes has fully indoctrinated even those who have been killed and maimed for believing otherwise describe themselves as educated. differently? This week the Large Hadron Collider at the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s National Assembly CERN inched closer to the discovery of Higgs imagined itself the Islamic equivalent of the Boson or the God Particle as it were. In this Council of Nicea. Just as that ancient bastion extraordinary story of human achievement, of Christian orthodoxy excommunicated Dr.Abdus Salam is a key player who put Unitarian Christians for not believing in the Pakistan on the map of theoretical physics. In trinity of the father, son and the Holy Ghost, his homeland though, a group of self-styled the National Assembly saw it fit to – primarily champions of Islam have started a posthumous at the instigation of the Prime Minister and campaign of scurrilous slander claiming that his law minister- declare an entire sect non- Dr. Salam was giving out nuclear secrets. Muslim. Just like the post hoc elevation of the Forget that even a confirmed bigot like General principle of trinity at Nicea, Pakistan’s National Zia held a ceremony in our only Nobel Prize Assembly located Islam in the principle of the winner’s honour or that no one ever accused finality of Prophet hood. Dr. Salam of any such thing; in Pakistan to be This act of our sovereign legislature stood a hero you have to actually transfer technology in sharp contrast to the view of this nation’s to Iran, Libya and North Korea. founding father. On 5 May, 1944, in response Now consider the case of 11 year old Sitara to demands of the orthodox Vis a Vis Ahmadis, Akbar. Every Pakistani and his mother in Jinnah made it absolutely clear that anyone law are citing her as a crowning national who professes to be a Muslim is a Muslim achievement, blissfully oblivious of the fact and welcome in the Muslim League and that that she is an Ahmadi. To them her religion those who were raising the issue were trying is suddenly unimportant or irrelevant or is it? to divide the Muslims. Here I am forced to say www.lahoreinternational.com 13 Monthly LAHORE International that I am inclined to accept Jinnah’s view and reject German court orders fines for the collective wisdom of our sovereign legislature. There are several reasons which may be cited in this ‘sharia police’ group regard: 1. First and foremost Pakistan is bound by the A German court ordered last month seven fundamen- United Nations’ charter. Therefore Pakistan is bound talists to pay fines over a so-called “sharia police” pa- to ensure freedom of religion for all its citizens and trol they launched in 2014 to mass media and political freedom of religion means freedom of religion outrage. according to the definition of the subject of the said The men aged between 27 and 37 must pay between freedom. 300 and 1,800 euros ($336-$2015) for infringing laws against wearing uniforms, the Wuppertal tribunal 2. Identity is subjective not objective. The state of found. Pakistan or any other state cannot tell an Ahmadi that Germany’s laws against wearing uniforms originally he is not a Muslim because it is intrinsic to the faith aimed to prevent neo-Nazis staging rallies and pa- of an Ahmadi. This is an inviolable, inalienable right rades. Judges said the group’s actions were aimed at as part of right to life which every state in the world achieving an “intimidating effect suggestive of mili- is bound to protect. If Ahmadis say they are Muslims tancy” by aping the sharia police as violent organiza- they ought to be accepted as such. tions. 3. Pakistan is a signatory to the ICCPR and without In September 2014, the seven patrolled the streets reservations since June 2011. Therefore every piece of Wuppertal, a west German industrial town with a sizeable Muslim population, wearing orange high-vis- of legislation that discriminates against Ahmadis or ibility vests marked “Sharia Police”. forces a label upon them is ultra virus the ICCPR. When they encountered young Muslims, they told 4. The Islamic argument: According to the Holy them not to drink alcohol or visit cafes, betting shops Prophet (PBUH) anyone who utters the Kalima or brothels. Monday’s verdict comes at the end of a Shahadah is a Muslim. None of the Kalimas, including second trial for the group after the constitutional the Primary Kalima Shahadah contains any reference court last year overturned their 2016 acquittal. to the principle of the finality of Prophethood as At the time of the “sharia police” patrol, the men were understood by the Muslim majority today. led by one of Germany’s prominent fundamentalist 5. Finally because by conduct and promise, preachers, Sven Lau, a 38-year-old convert to Islam. Pakistani state is stopped from claiming otherwise. In He was himself sentenced in 2017 to a five-year jail 1947, Pakistan laid claim to Qadian as a Muslim holy term in a separate case, after being found guilty of “supporting a terrorist organization” by recruiting po- place, a counter-blast to Sikh claims on Nankana Sahib tential militants to travel to Syria. and Hassan Abdal. Similarly in 1946 elections which https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/ is the basic referendum on the question of Pakistan, world/2019/05/27/German-court-orders-fines-for-sha- Ahmadi votes were instrumental in getting Muslims ria-police-group.html Pakistan. These are undeniable facts of history. Therefore- fully aware of the stigma attached to this statement- I concur with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan that Ahmadis are Muslims, if they say they are Muslims and no one, not even the sovereign legislature, has the right to say otherwise. Source: pakteahouse.net/2011/12/15/are- ahmadis-non-muslims/

Muslims pray in the central mosque in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, western Germany, on October 3, 2017. (AFP)

Monthly LAHORE International 14 www.lahoreinternational.com WORST EXPLOITATION OF ISLAM IN PAKISTAN

SYED SADRUDDIN HUSSAIN n Pakistan, Our Mulla Community Is More Di- Usual Contains Good And Bad Words, Songs And vided On Religious Matters And Rituals. We Cel- Dances Etc. As In Any Other Language. The Arab ebrate At Least Two Eids. Being An Islamic State Children And Adults Don’t Memorize The Holy Quran ​IWith Religion As A Government Subject, Our Prime Except The Masjid Imams/Speakers. The Arab Chil- Minister Should Take Bold Steps To Ban All Religious dren Read The Holy Quran In Schools Along With Groups And Parties And Nationalize All Masajid And Other Subjects--All In Arabic. But We Near ‘Worship’ Madressahs. The Illegally Built Masajid On Open The Arabic Language And Generally Perform ‘Wudu’ Lots/Plots, Parks, Play Grounds, Big Road Intersec- To Touch And Read The Holy Quran And That Too tions Etc. May Be Pulled Down As They Are Not Al- Without Understanding. lah’s Houses As Wrongly Being Called By Our Mullas. The Holy Quran Was Bestowed In Arabic On Our Ar- Allah’s House Is One And Only Masjid Ul Haraam, abic Prophet To Warn And Guide The Then Deviat- Makkah Free From Sectarianism, Fiqah, Maslak Dif- ed And Erring Arabs To Embrace Islam And Follow ferences, Free From Donation Collections, Religious The Right Path Of Allah (12:2/ 41:2-3,44/ 42:7/ 43:3). Group And Party Interest And To Which Are Linked Allah Bestowed The Previous Three Holy Books I.e. Khan-E-Kaaba, Hujr Aswad, Muqam Ibrahim, Aab Torah, Zaboor And Bible Not In Arabic But In The Zam Zam, Hatim And Also Safwa And Marwa Hill- Then Prevalent Languages Of The Time To Warn And ocks And Where Hajj And Umra Are Performed. Guide The Then Deviated/Kafir People To Follow The Hence The Rest Of The Masajid Are Simply Prayer Right Path Of Allah. Halls Only. Hence Being A Universal Deen, We Should All Read The Theological Madressahs Attached With Our Quranic Translation In Our Own Language Again Masajid Be Upgraded Into Schools With Holy Quran And Again To Understand And Follow Islam Correct- And Its Translation/Explanation As One Of The Sub- ly And Entirely Instead Of Cornering It To So Called jects To Understand And Follow Islam Correctly And Five Pillars Of ‘Puja Pat’ Rituals Only. Actually The Entirely. Whole Quran Is The Pillar Of Islam And All Its Spe- Actually Islam Is A Complete Way Of Life/Deen (5:3) cific Guidance/Mohkmaath Should Be Followed In And Theology/Mazhabi Rituals Are Only Part Of Our Letter And Spirit To Achieve Allah’s Blessings. Thanks. Complete Deen. In Arabia There Is No Such Theolog- ical Madressah System To Corner Islam As A Theol- ogy To Simply Read/Recite And Memorize The Holy Quran. Arabic Is Their Common Language And As www.lahoreinternational.com 15 Monthly LAHORE International UK: Victorians who became Muslims

Abdullah Quilliam

William Henry Quilliam adopted the name Abdullah after his conversion

t the height of the Empire, a select band of British people renounced Christianity and converted to Islam. These are the stories of three such pioneers, who defied Victorian norms at a time when Christianity was the bedrock of British identity. SolicitorA William Henry Quilliam became interested in Islam after seeing Moroccans pray on a ferry during a Mediterranean break in 1887. “They were not at all troubled by the force of the strong wind or by the swaying of the ship. I was deeply touched by the look on their faces and their expressions, which displayed complete trust and sincerity,” he recalled. After inquiring about the religion during a stay in Tangiers, 31-year-old Quilliam became a Muslim, describing his new faith as “reasonable and logical and, personally, I felt it did not contradict my beliefs”.

Monthly LAHORE International 16 www.lahoreinternational.com While Islam doesn’t oblige converts to change their including being assaulted with bricks, offal and horse names, he adopted the name of Abdullah. manure. On his return to England in 1887, he became a Quilliam believed the attackers had been “brainwashed preacher, and was said to be instrumental in the and led to believe that we were bad people”. conversion of about 600 people across the UK. He was known locally for his work with the underprivileged - advocating trade unionism and divorce law reform - but his legal career came to ruin when he tried to help a female client seeking a divorce. A honey-trap was set up for her allegedly adulterous husband - a practice not uncommon at the time - but the attempt failed and Quilliam was struck off.

Quilliam is credited with converting 200 locals and 600 people across the UK He also established the country’s first mosque that year in Liverpool - regarded by many at the time as the “second city of the British Empire”. Queen Victoria, who ruled over more Muslims than Worshippers still pray at the Abdullah Quilliam mosque in the Turkish Ottoman Empire, was among those Liverpool, which was opened in 1887 who ordered his pamphlet “Faith of Islam”, which summarised the religion and was translated into 13 He left Liverpool in 1908 to minimise the scandal’s languages. impact on the Muslim community. He resurfaced in She is said to have ordered six more copies for her the south as Henri de Leon, although many knew family. But her willingness to learn was not always who he was, according to Prof Ron Geaves, who has matched by a wider society which believed Islam to written a book about Quilliam. be a violent religion. Although his profile diminished, he became involved In 1894, the Ottoman sultan - with the approval of with the country’s second oldest mosque, built in the Queen - appointed Quilliam as Sheikh al-Islam of Woking in 1889, and was buried in the Surrey town the British Isles, a title reflecting his leadership in the after his death in 1932. Muslim community. The Liverpool mosque bears his name to this day.

An illustration of Queen Victoria investing Ottoman Sultan Abdul Aziz (centre) with the Order of the Garter Quilliam also became involved with Britain’s second oldest mosque Despite the official recognition, many Liverpudlian in Woking converts faced resentment and abuse over their faith, www.lahoreinternational.com 17 Monthly LAHORE International Lady Evelyn Cobbold Lady Evelyn’s faith was apparently cemented after a holiday in Rome, where she met the Pope. “When His Holiness suddenly addressed me, asking if I was a Catholic, I was taken aback for a moment and then replied that I was a Muslim,” she later wrote. “What possessed me I don’t pretend to know, as I had not given a thought to Islam for many years. A match was lit and I then and there determined to read up and study the faith.” It was the religion’s spiritual aspect that attracted many converts, according to historian William Facey, who wrote the foreword to Lady Evelyn’s memoirs.

Lady Evelyn, pictured with her husband John Cobbold, felt she was He says they followed a “belief that all the great “Muslim at heart” religions shared a transcendent unity… behind the It wasn’t uncommon for members of the upper classes superficial doctrinal detail that divides them”. to be fascinated by Islam, often inspired by travels in In the Middle East, Lady Evelyn - referred to as “Lady Muslim lands. Zainab” by her Arab friends - often had access to areas From an aristocratic family, Edinburgh-born Lady reserved for women and wrote about the “dominating Evelyn Murray spent much of her childhood switching influence of women” in Muslim culture. between life in Scotland and north Africa. At the age of 65, she embarked on the Hajj pilgrimage “There, I learnt to speak Arabic and my delight was to Mecca - the first British woman on record to to escape my governess and visit the mosques with complete the feat. my Algerian friends, and unconsciously I was a little It offered her “endless interest, wonder and beauty” Muslim at heart,” she wrote. and her account was later published in a book, At her ancestral estate of Dunmore Park, she excelled Pilgrimage to Mecca. at deer-stalking and salmon-fishing. Her explorer father, the 7th Earl of Dunmore, was often away in destinations including China and Canada. Her mother, later a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, was also a keen traveller. Lady Evelyn inherited her parents’ wanderlust and it was in Cairo where she met and married her husband John Cobbold - a businessman who was part of the brewery dynasty that ran Ipswich Town FC.

Lady Evelyn later wrote about her pilgrimage Little is known about her life afterwards other than she travelled for a short period in Kenya. She died in an Inverness nursing home in 1963 at the age of 95, having instructed that a bagpiper play at her funeral and a Koranic passage, known as the “verse of light”, be inscribed on her gravestone. The marker, located in her Glencarron estate in the Highlands, was later slashed with a knife - perhaps Lady Evelyn was the first British woman known to have performed testament to the strong views her conversion drew. the Hajj “I am often asked when and why I became a Muslim,” It is not known when she converted to Islam. The seed she wrote in her memoirs. may have been sown by her childhood travels, but “I can only reply that I do not know the precise moment when the truth of Islam dawned upon me. Monthly LAHORE International 18 www.lahoreinternational.com “It seems that I have always been a Muslim.” “Robert was 28 years older than Quilliam so I think there may have been a bit of a father-son relationship Robert Stanley there,” says Ms Longden. It wasn’t until he was 70 years old however, in 1898, that Stanley became a Muslim and adopted the name Reschid. Ms Longden believes from her research that there were “no other Muslims” in Stalybridge at the time. Stanley later moved to Manchester and died in 1911.

Robert Stanley converted to Islam at the age of 70 The narrative of Victorian Muslim history is usually dominated by those from society’s upper echelons, whose accounts have been better preserved. Keeping written documents, such as diaries, was “generally more a sign of being middle class”, says Christina Longden, who only found out her ancestor A 19th Century image shows workers on strike in Stalybridge became Muslim after her father researched their His conversion was kept quiet by his immediate family tree. descendants and was only discovered by the Longdens Robert Stanley rose from working-class grocer to in 1998. Conservative mayor of Stalybridge - a mill town near “Quilliam’s granddaughter said this was ‘an age when, Manchester - in the 1870s. if you didn’t conform, your picture was turned to the According to Ms Longden, who has written a book wall for all time’,” says Ms Longden. and play about him, he was also a magistrate who set Coincidentally, Ms Longden’s brother, Steven, became up a fund for workers sacked for not voting in line a Muslim in 1991 after studying in Egypt as part of with their bosses’ views. his university degree - seven years before finding out She also found he regularly wrote about British about Stanley. colonialism to the newsletter of Quilliam’s Liverpool When he heard about his ancestor’s conversion, he mosque. recalls finding it “incredibly shocking, in a good way”. “The fact there was a man who chose to be Muslim at a time when you couldn’t possibly imagine someone would do something so unorthodox... when you sit and think about it, well yeah, it’s Manchester. “People aren’t afraid to stand up and say what they believe in, whether that’s politically or religiously.” https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-48069763

Robert Stanley (centre) with Abdullah Quilliam (right) at the Liverpool mosque Stanley met Quilliam in the late 1890s after he had retired from his political career, and they became close friends. www.lahoreinternational.com 19 Monthly LAHORE International UK: A British GP Hounded Out Of Medicine By Muslim Claims

A GP has revealed he is veil as he was unable to hear her explain her sick planning to quit medicine daughter’s symptoms because of the niqab she was over an investigation by wearing. “The mother said she was concerned the the doctors watchdog into child had tonsillitis. claims he ‘discriminated’ ‘But the 52-year-old GP struggled to hear the moth- against a Muslim woman er’s account of the girl’s health problems because her for asking her to remove her speech was being obscured by her niqab – a garment veil. worn by some Muslim women that covers the body “Dr Keith Wolverson said and face apart from the eyes. Dr Keith Wolverson, pictured, has practised as a GP for 23 years but now he ‘politely’ asked the wom- “The doctor said he ‘politely’ asked the woman to re- plans to leave his job an to take off the garment move the veil covering her face so he could be sure for patient safety reasons what she was saying. “I asked her, would you kindly during a consultation last remove your face veil please because it makes com- year because he was unable to hear her explain her munication very difficult,’ Dr Wolverson explained. sick daughter’s symptoms. ‘Normally this issue doesn’t arise because patients au- “He was then ‘deeply upset’ when last week he received tomatically do so. a letter from the General Medical Council, the pro- ‘“One would think that any parent would be wholly fessional regulator, informing him that he was subject supportive and grateful that a doctor was trying to to an inquiry over allegations of racial discrimination safely treat their child.” “According to Dr Wolverson, which could result in him being struck off. the mother complied with his request without raising “Last night, Dr Wolverson, who has practised as a GP any objections. “But half an hour after the consulta- for 23 years and has an unblemished record, said re- tion, her husband arrived and declared he was making gardless of the outcome of the investigation he now a complaint about the GP’s behaviour. plans to leave his job. ‘He sat outside my consultation room and threaten- “He said: ‘I feel a major injustice has taken place. This ingly made eye contact towards me whenever I went is why you are waiting so long to see your GP and doc- out to fetch each patient,’ Dr Wolverson said. ‘He then tors are leaving in droves. This country will have no made a formal complaint and I was prevented from doctors left if we continue to treat them in this man- working at the walk-in centre again.’ ner. I’m deeply upset. “It has since emerged that NHS bosses sent the GMC ‘A doctor’s quest to perform the very finest consulta- a form outlining the complaints. It says the woman tion for the safety of the patient has been misinter- told the doctor she did not want to remove the veil preted in a duplicitous manner to suggest there has on religious grounds but he refused to continue the been an act of racism committed. I absolutely no consultation unless she did. longer want to be a doctor.’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7046077/ “Dr Wolverson told how the Muslim woman brought Doctor-faces-inquiry-asking-Muslim-lift-veil-says- her daughter, aged ten or 11, to see him at a walk-in quit-23-years-GP.html centre at Royal Stoke University Hospital in Stoke-on- Trent, Staffordshire, last June. “The doctor said he asked the woman to remove the Monthly LAHORE International 20 www.lahoreinternational.com Forgotten Muslim soldiers of World War I ‘silence’ far right

By Rahil SheikhBBC Asian Network

hundred years since the end of World World War One and says raising awareness War One, historians think recognizing could silence anti-Muslim rhetoric by far-right the contribution of Muslims can groups in Britain today. Mr Bhabha says his team Ahelp tackle contemporary issues such as is now opening up documents and discovering Islamophobia. new information about their role in the War. “Muslim soldiers have been forgotten about “Accessing archives from 19 countries, we have over time,” Hayyan Bhabha, from the Muslim discovered that more than four million Muslims Experience, says. either fought or served as labourers during the “The core far-right narrative is that Muslims War, from around the world,” he says. One of have never done anything for us.”Well, actually, those was Sepoy Khudadad Khan, an Indian with facts that are over 100 years old, we can soldier who fought alongside British troops. say Muslims fought and died for the history He was the sole survivor of a team assigned to and security of Europe.” It is estimated that 1.5 defend vital ports in France and Belgium from million Indian troops fought to defend Britain. German forces. According to accounts, Khan Of those, 400,000 were Muslim soldiers. managed to hold off the enemy advance long enough for British reinforcements to arrive. The Muslim Experience is working to highlight On 31 October 1914, Khan, of the 129th Duke the global contribution of Muslim soldiers to

www.lahoreinternational.comMonthly LAHORE International 2121 Monthlywww.lahoreinternational.com LAHORE International of Connaught’s Own Baluchis Regiment, Indian troops serving with the British army pray outside the Shah Jahan became the first South Asian to receive the Mosque in Woking, Surrey Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military honour. ‘Feel more British’ Groups such as the Muslim Experience want stories of soldiers to be heard. They also want more British Muslims to find out if they have a personal connection to World War One. Just as a local GP in Nottingham, Dr Irfan Malik, did after he had a chance conversation with a patient that led him to discover two of his great-grandfathers had fought for Britain. Dr Malik’s great-grandparents, Capt Ghulam is taught currently is very European-centric. “The Mohammad and Subedar Mohammad Khan, were history that is taught doesn’t show the true diversity two of 460 soldiers from a tiny village called Dulmial, of everyone that took part in the First World War.” in modern-day Pakistan, sent to fight in the 1914-18 conflict. A study by think tank British Future found just 22% of people in Britain knew Muslims had fought in the “One of my patients is a researcher of Commonwealth Great War. contribution to World War One and I told him about a village in modern-day Pakistan where I’m from that So, it has launched a campaign, Remember Together, has a cannon commemorating the Great War,” he says. to raise awareness in schools. “From that point four years ago, my journey began Steve Ballinger, from British Future, says: “Finding and I found out my two great-grandparents fought for out that Muslim soldiers fought and died for Britain to Britain. “I’m very fortunate to have images from 100 protect us and to protect the freedoms we enjoy today, years ago. It means a huge amount to me. It’s made that’s an important history for everyone to know.” me feel more British as we have this shared history in It has certainly meant a lot to Daleesha Naz, 14, of common and I believe it helps community cohesion.” Eden Girls School, in east London.”Today I learned But how connected do British Muslims feel to the that 400,000 Muslims fought in the British Indian army War and how aware is the community itself of its links and it has made me feel closer and more connected to to British military history? Mr Bhabha thinks some British history,” she says. young Muslims in particular are not engaged with As the 100th anniversary of the end of World War British military history. One is remembered, historians, campaigners, and “Most Muslims are not engaged with military history descendants of the soldiers are making sure the because they can’t relate to it,” he says. “The way it contribution of Muslims is never forgotten. Luc Ferrier, who chairs Forgotten Heroes 14-19 - the umbrella group for the Muslim Experience - says: “If the world really wants to reach out to the international Muslim community, then they need to know the enormous contribution these people have made, fighting a war none of their making. “Only by recognising and honouring the global Muslim sacrifices, not only these of the British colonies, we are reaching out to them and saying a genuine thank you”.

Muslim graves in French military cemetery Notre Dame de Lorette.

Monthly LAHORE International 22 www.lahoreinternational.com Bad math

By Prof Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy big blunders

NOW that the hype and hysteria he helped create without a full fiscal and cost/benefit analysis, detailed is fading, recently retired chief justice Saqib Nisar supply chain management, and logistics connecting deserves to wear a pointed dunce cap on his head as the nodes. Teams of technical experts guide political he, with the most powerful men in Pakistan today leaders through the maze. But for Pakistani decision- behind him, walks slowly through the Hall of Shame. makers, whim suffices. Had they understood from schooldays the importance Question: why so few genuine Pakistani experts of a few innocent-looking zeros to the left of a decimal and why is math illiteracy so rampant? We have point, they’d recognise a million from a billion. We good soldiers but not a single top-level Pakistani might have then been spared the deep national mathematician anywhere in the world — even those embarrassment everyone now wants to forget — the recently decorated with Pakistan’s highest national Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams. awards for mathematics would probably flunk From yesterday (Friday) morning here’s the math: The undergrad math exams at places like MIT. Why Supreme Court website shows Rs10,669,728,001 in is the math taught in our schools and universities the dam fund with inflows starting July 6, 2018. Looks ridiculously bad? huge, eh? In US dollars that’s just $0.07bn. Worse, since The answer has two parts. First, most people confuse February the graph is flat because salaried people are math with arithmetic and with cut-and-dried fighting against more forced deductions. Still worse: formulas. But it’s not that! Mathematics is the music of the un-invested fund has lost Rs10m a day in interest reason whose rich melodies need good tutoring and (the recent decision to invest this by June 20 is way hard work to understand. Second, math matters much overdue). Now compare the measly $0.07bn with the but only if you think the laws of physics, expressed whopping $14bn needed for Diamer-Bhasha alone mathematically, actually govern the physical universe. (2013 estimate). In July 2018 the intrepid Khurram Where Inshallah holds sway, math based predictions Husain calculated that 199 years of donations were are easily overridden. Precise planning then becomes needed to achieve this. With reduced inflows, that useless or secondary; math skills are unneeded. time rockets up to 600-700 years. Case in point: some geniuses in Gen Musharraf’s Favourite excuses: overseas Pakistanis didn’t deliver cabinet one day decided to substitute CNG for petrol. their $1,000 per person as Imran Khan imagined they They priced CNG so low that poor taxi drivers and land would; local Pakistanis were stingy despite prods and cruiser owners alike rushed to buy a CNG conversion nudges and hourly exhortations over establishment- kit costing Rs20,000 or more. Millions saved and controlled radio and TV; the trillions of looted money scrimped to buy one but the net savings were still supposedly returning to Pakistan somehow got lost good. Then one day: poof! As gas started petering out, on the way; and the dollar went through the roof. All queues became impossibly long. Thousands of CNG predictable but to foresee something you need brains, stations closed down and millions of kits were thrown not just eyes. away. Mathematics is all about reason but reason in Pakistan Again, bad math! Computer modeling of supply and appears to have dried up in recent times. demand, with the model’s output actually determining In a mathematically savvy country no major project — policy, is normal elsewhere. Did our experts and civil works, manufacturing, or health — is approved Supreme Court think that divine intervention would www.lahoreinternational.com 23 Monthly LAHORE International bring back the gas? It didn’t and so everything collapsed. Listing every such bungle could fill countless thick Norway Island wants to volumes. But there’s a mega-bungle deserving inclusion in Ripley’s Believe it or Not. Since it’s from be time free zone the backwaters of Sindh, almost no one knows about it. Way back in 1989 a brand new campus was acquired Residents of a Norwegian island where the sun for Shah Abdul Latif University near the shrine of doesn’t set for 69 days of the year want to go “time- Shadi Shaheed some 25 kilometres from Khairpur free” and have more flexible school and working city. Spread over 900 acres, construction proceeded hours to make the most of their long summer until 1995. And then before the first class was held it days. was abandoned forever. Thirty years later, there’s talk People on the island of Sommaroy are pushing about converting the campus to a date plantation — to get rid of traditional business hours and “con- but that’s if they can find water. ventional time-keeping” during the midnight sun Colleagues in Khairpur invited me there in 1997 period that lasts from May 18 to July 26, resident Kjell Ove Hveding said. for physics lectures but insisted I also tour the new campus. Driving over an un-metalled road in the Hveding met with a Norwegian lawmaker this blazing desert heat brought us to 30-odd buildings month to present a petition signed by dozens of is- standing silently in the backdrop of barren hills. It landers in support of declaring a “time-free zone” was like visiting a town after an earthquake except and to discuss any practical and legal obstacles to there had been no earthquake. After it rained in 1995 basically ignoring what it says on clocks. the ground settled unevenly and some buildings lost “It’s a bit crazy, but at the same it is pretty serious,” roofs, others leaned to one side. The only occupants I he said. encountered were desert lizards and stray dogs. Sommaroey, which lies north of the Arctic Circle, Bad math, bad soil engineering! Nevertheless, the stays dark from November to January. The idea accused pleaded in court that “this incident should behind the time-free zone is that going off the be seen as an act of God which mere mortals could clock would make it easier for residents, especial- do little to prevent” and argued that unseasonal rains ly students, employers and workers, to make the were due to Him. It worked: no one was ever punished. most of the precious months when the opposite is true. Math illiteracy also means ‘exponential growth’ is not understood. The consequences of this are graver than Having no clocks “is a great solution but we likely anything imaginable. Pakistan currently has a ‘small’ won’t become an entirely time-free zone as it will net population growth rate of 2.1 per cent. This means be too complex,” Hveding said. “But we have put every 33 years the population will double, and then the time element on the agenda, and we might get double again and again. If continued, by this century’s more flexibility ... to adjust to the daylight.” end Pakistan’s population will exceed that of Europe, “The idea is also to chill out. I have seen people Canada, Australia and New Zealand combined. suffering from stress because they were pressed This shocking piece of math is something that no by time,” he said. Sitting west of Tromsoe, the is- government or its minders dare discuss; the ministry land has a population of 350. Fishery and tourism of population planning was abolished years ago. are the main industries. A silver lining, howsoever slight: Fawad Chaudhry, Finland last year lobbied for the abolition of Euro- the current minister of science and technology, is pean Union daylight savings time after a citizens’ pushing an Islamic calendar. Four hundred years ago, initiative collected more than 70,000 signatures. after he invented infinitesimal calculus, Isaac Newton found that gravity and inertia alone determine lunar and planetary orbits. Unlike what had been imagined in mediaeval times, it wasn’t teams of harnessed angels that were pulling them around. Today we know to within half an inch where the moon will be 1,000 years hence. Will Chaudhry and his new scientific almanac succeed in convincing us when the next Eid- ul-Fitr will be? Let’s wish him luck. The writer teaches physics and math in Lahore and Islamabad Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2019

Monthly LAHORE International 24 www.lahoreinternational.com SIKH ELDERS WON’T LET ANYONE DEMOLISH MOSQUE DESPITE ZERO MUSLIM POPULATION DAILY SIKH UPDATES Ludhiana, Punjab

Sikh elders of the Ludhiana Village Hedon Bet The elders stated that the Mosque is the house of refuse to let anyone demolish the Mosque built god and no one has the right to demolish it. The in 1920 despite zero Muslim population in the residents of the village overwhelmingly support village. the elders and prevent anyone from occupying “We will not let anyone demolish the masjid” the abandoned site. The elders stated that as long as they live the Mosque will stand and they will stand guard to prevent demolition. The Muslim population of the village moved to the newly formed Pakistan in 1947 and abandoning their places of worship. The Sikhs have a long history of protecting other’s places of worship. The 6th Guru, Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji even built a mosque for Muslims.

“It is the house of god” http://dailysikhupdates.com/sikh-elders-wont- let-anyone-demolish-mosque-in-ludhiana- village-despite-zero-muslim-population

Lahore International Magazine

This is the masjid in the village Hedon Bet of : @lahoreintl Ludhiana district : @lahoreintl : lahoreinternational : Lahoreintl : +447940077825 : +447940077825 : [email protected]

www.lahoreinternational.com 25 Monthly LAHORE International Canada: Quebec’s new secularism law bans religious symbols

By Barbara Kay

Yousra Khitouch, centre, was among the more than 300 protesters who took to the streets in Montreal to protest Bill 21 on Monday evening. (Claire Loewen/CBC)

he new secularism law, once known as Québécois, but almost none amongst minority Bill 21, makes it illegal to wear religious groups, who read xenophobia and even racism Tsymbols at work if you’re a public school into its proscription of religious symbolism in the teacher, a police officer, a judge, a prison guard, a public-service sector. The bill, as passed, includes wildlife officer, a Crown prosecutor or if you work the Notwithstanding Clause, which is expected to as a lawyer for the government. The legislation discourage Charter challenges to the law. also lays out the rules requiring citizens to the public-service sector. The bill, as passed, uncover their faces to receive a public service for includes the Notwithstanding Clause, which is identification or security purposes. expected to discourage Charter challenges to the Quebec’s Bill 21 is finally law. Premier François law. Yousra Khitouch, centre, was among the Legault’s government invoked premature closure more than 300 protesters who took to the streets to end fierce debate over the weekend, and it in Montreal to protest Bill 21 on Monday evening. passed 73-35, the Parti Québécois in support, the (Claire Loewen/CBC) Liberals and Québec solidaire opposed. The law I’m on record in support of Bill 21. The government’s enjoys overwhelming support amongst ethnic philosophical position is that secularism, as an

Monthly LAHORE International 26 www.lahoreinternational.com existential component of Québécois identity, may number of immigrants we welcome each year, reasonably trump the multiculturalist paradigm “as we may be reaching our limit to integrate in areas of civic interaction under the state’s them in our communities,” while 37 per cent of aegis, such as public education, law enforcement respondents think the federal government should and the bureaucracy. Multiculturalism is one prioritize increasing the numbers “to ensure vision of society that happens to prevail in most that we can meet the demands of our growing Western societies. But it is not the only vision that economy.” (Notably, the poll did not provide a is entirely consistent with democratic principles, third choice of keeping immigration levels the especially in societies desirous of preserving and same, so add that caveat to your mental hopper.) strengthening the cultural identity that made Uncertainties over Canada’s evolving national their nation (or as in Quebec quasi-nation) the identity won’t be stifled by mockery and derision. attractive destination it is for immigrants. Federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen I think many Canadians, not just Québécois, feel does his party and the nation no service by that policies like Bill 21 will be a positive force for associating a wish for a more manageable social integration of immigrants, just as Bill 101, immigration flow with “misinformation and the 1977 Charter of the French Language, equally conspiracy theories.” contested, ensured that immigrants to Quebec The sudden, startling success in the last EU became successfully integrated linguistically. election of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, but also Progressives should resist the facile reflex to label the slow, steady gains by populist parties like it “Islamophobic,” even though extreme distaste Switzerland’s People’s Party, Marine Le Pen’s for face cover in Quebec — and the forthrightness National Rally in France, Matteo Salvini’s The to say so, unlike in the rest of Canada, where it is League in Italy and Alternative for Germany, are viewed with almost as much distaste — was the linked to rising concerns over immigration and spark 11 years ago that got this whole ball rolling. its impact on national identity. Brexit Remainers Bill 9 was also passed in the wee hours of Sunday were all about the economic reasons for staying in morning. This law reforms Quebec’s immigration the EU. Leavers wanted to open up a conversation system over which, uniquely amongst the about the cultural changes wrought by mass provinces, the province has near-autonomous immigration. Liberal pundits insisted that Leavers control. New selection criteria will more efficiently were all old white men nostalgic for cultural match immigrants with employment needs, as homogeneity, but in fact, Brexit was endorsed by opposed to the first-come system of the past. 50 per cent of women, 50 per cent of 35-44 year Controversially, the law will condition olds and one in three black and ethnic minority permanent-residency eligibility on immigrants voters. passing a language and “values test.” The change https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay- will pre-emptively cancel out 18,000 immigration why-quebecs-immigration-and-secularism-bills- applications, jeopardizing the fate of about 50,000 get-it-right immigrants already in the processing queue, and they will have to start over under the new rubrics. That last part seems pretty indefensible ethically. But in principle, the idea of prioritizing immigrants who offer immediate economic and cultural value to Quebec makes sense and accords with the wishes of most Quebec voters. By coincidence, a new Leger poll that asks Canadians what the first priorities of the federal government should be, finds that 63 per cent of respondents want the government to limit the www.lahoreinternational.com 27 Monthly LAHORE International USA: Qasim Rashid & Ghazala Hashmi win Virginia senate primaries

By: Carl Gibson

After Tuesday night’s Virginia primary elections, of women’s rights, increasing education access, human rights activist Qasim Rashid will face off increasing healthcare access, and criminal justice with Republican Richard Stuart in a district that’s reform, these are critical policies that we need to been held by Republicans since 1978. Qasim improve upon.” Rashid Rashid’s primary victory on Tuesday night was a And with partisan control of milestone for Virginia, as both Virginia’s state senate narrowly Rashid and Ghazala Hashmi in in favor of Republicans — Virginia’s 10th Senate District who have 21 senators while are the first Muslims in the Democrats have 19 — Rashid history of the commonwealth could potentially flip control of to win primary elections for the Virginia state senate if he the Virginia state senate. It was wins the general election this also a personal milestone for coming November. Rashid — as he tweeted earlier Should he prevail in November, in the day, neither Rashid nor Qasim Rashid told Grit Post he his family were able to vote in plans to address “skyrocketing their birth country of Pakistan. healthcare costs” and “a very Qasim rashid Virginia’s legislature has become underfunded education system,” so comfortable with corporate- as well as the legislature’s failure friendly backdoor dealmaking to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. that governance in Richmond has been dubbed RICHMOND, Va. — Ghazala Hashmi has won the “Virginia Way.” A more recent example of the the Democratic primary in State Senate District Virginia Way in action was the House of Delegates 10. State Senate District 10 includes portions of (Virginia’s lower chamber) awarding $750 million Chesterfield County and the City of Richmond in tax breaks to Amazon for its new headquarters plus all of Powhatan County.Hashmi will after a mere nine minutes of debate. challenge incumbent Republican Senator Glen Rashid railed against the deal, pointing out that Sturtevant, a lawyer and former member of the Amazon paid $0 in federal taxes on more than Richmond School Board who was elected to the $11 billion in profit last year. He also proudly Virginia Senate in 2016. Ghazala Hashmi wins mentioned that his campaign has flatly refused democratic primary in Virginia senate district 10 donations from corporations, lobbyists, and real “For me, this race is about taking my advocacy estate developers, “to stay accountable to people, and turning it into policy,” Rashid told Grit Post. because that’s who we’re elected to serve.” “Given that I’ve dedicated my life as a human As of the most recent reporting cycle, Rashid’s rights lawyer to these really important issues state senate campaign has raised approximately Monthly LAHORE International 28 www.lahoreinternational.com $130,000, with 98% of those donations coming Saudi Arabians Mona Shabab and Saud from donors giving $100 or less. Al-Eidi praised after reaching Everest Rashid promised to not only upend the Virginia summit Way, but to combat wealth inequality, calling it “one of the single greatest cancers afflicting RIYADH: Two Saudi Arabians have been awarded on America right now.” To underscore his point, their return to the Kingdom for reaching the summit of Mount Everest in May 2019. Rashid pointed to the Gini coefficient, which the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Saud Al-Eidi and Mona Shabab were welcomed on their return to Jeddah by Prince Bandar bin Khalid bin Development (OECD) uses to measure income Fahd, chairman of the Saudi Federation for Climbing. inequality throughout the world. The United Saudi ambassador to US Princess Reema bint Bandar States’ Gini coefficient ranks between Lithuania was also present at the ceremony. and Turkey, and three billionaires — Amazon Two Saudi Arabians - Shabab (center, left) and Al- founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Eidi (center, right) have been awarded on their return and Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffett to the Kingdom for reaching the summit of Mount — own more wealth than the poorest 150 million Everest last week. (SPA) Americans combined. It took the duo 60 days to complete the trek to the “There’s a widening gap between the haves and top of the world’s highest peak (8,850 meters). Prince the have-nots,” Rashid told Grit Post. “The level Bandar paid tribute to their achievement and urged of wealth inequality now is worse than before the them to continue in their efforts to reach other world heights. Great Depression in 1929, so 90 years later we’ve unfortunately not learned from the mistakes of Speaking to Arab News earlier this month from Everest Base Camp, Shabab said: “One of my goals is for us to the past.” gently shake the world, to change misperceptions, and “Every aspect of society, whether it’s education, maybe even shatter some stereotypes. Many raise an healthcare, whether it’s criminal justice reform, eyebrow when they hear a Saudi woman has achieved it’s all intrinsically tied to wealth inequality,” he something. continued, adding that he would vote to make “Saudi women can, Saudi women will, reach whatever “millionaires, billionaires, and mega-corporations heights they set their mind and heart to,” she added. pay a fair tax rate,” and that Virginia would “lower Shahab now wants to scale two of the world’s highest the tax burden on the lower and middle class.” seven summits — Australia’s tallest mountain, Rashid will face an uphill battle in winning the Mount Kosciuszko, and Denali, the highest point in North America. They form part of the world’s “Seven upcoming general election for Virginia’s 28th Summits” and the Explorers Grand Slam title — which senate district this November. While his opponent, requires adventurers to reach the North Pole and the Richard Stuart, has been the district’s state senator South Pole in addition to the seven peaks. since 2007, his predecessor, Republican John Mona Shabab’s climbing journey so far. (Arab News) Chichester, held the seat for nearly 30 years. Once she achieves that she intends to make her way District 28 also includes Westmoreland County, to the North and South Pole on skis and become the which is described by Ballotpedia as one of the first Saudi to complete the Explorers Grand Slam 206 “pivot counties” that voted for Barack Obama challenge. In 2012, she scaled the summit of Africa’s in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016. tallest mountain Kilimanjaro and two years later However, Rashid — a devout Ahmadi Muslim — reached the peak of Mont Blanc in France. isn’t worried about the Trump supporters in his Al-Eidi, on a different ascent, posted a picture to district and told Grit Post some of his supporters his Instagram profile once he reached the summit include Republicans who have since distanced with a message thanking friends and family for their continued support after “six years of training and 60 themselves from President Trump. days in the Himalayas.” https://gritpost.com/qasim-rashid-virginia-state- http://www.arabnews.com/node/1503266/saudi- senate-primary/ arabia www.lahoreinternational.com 29 Monthly LAHORE International aterson’s new class of police officers is breaking historic USA: ground as the first all-female class, including among Pthem the first Palestinian-American woman and hijabi. Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh swore in the three officers, Yeniry Medina, Gabriela Toribio and Serein Tamimi, at a City Hall ceremony Tuesday in what he called a “proud moment for the NJ police city of Paterson.” “They’re trailblazers,” Sayegh said, as he introduced the welcome new officers. “They’ve broken the glass ceiling. Now young Patersonians, young people in our schools and our streets, can look up and say, ‘I want to be just like them.’ “ first hijabi The women started in a class of six Paterson recruits, including four women and two men. After a rigorous six- officer month program of physical and academic training, the three were left standing. Tamimi, 22, who came to the U.S. when she was less than a year old, ran track in high school, majored in justice studies at Montclair State University and excelled at the academy. On Tuesday, she became the first city police officer to wear a hijab, or Islamic headscarf, in the city. She hopes to inspire other young Muslim women to follow their dreams, but also wants to set an example for other Americans who may not know much about Muslims. “I want to be there for the community and be able to relate to them in a sense, and let everybody know, if they need anything, they can ask questions,” said Tamimi, whose mother, sister and cousin cheered her on in the audience. “I want to show them that we’re not what the media portrays us to be,” she said. “We’re friendly people, we love what we do Yeniry Medina, Serein Tamimi and Gabriela Toribio (left to right) were sworn in as Paterson police officers in the city’s first and we are there for the community.” all-female class on June 11, 2019. (Photo: Hannan Adely) Toribio and Medina are Dominican-American and have lived their whole lives in Paterson. They join a police force of just over 400 people, including 57 women. Toribio, 22, said she was inspired to become a police officer because of an encounter with a kind cop who helped her when she was a kid and because of the example set by police officers in her family. https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2019/06/11/ paterson-police-welcome-first-all-female-class-first-hijabi- officer/1410115001/

Yeniry Medina, Serein Tamimi and Gabriela Toribio (left to right) were sworn in as Paterson police officers in the city’s first all-female class on June 11, 2019. (Photo: Hannan Adely)

Monthly LAHORE International 30 www.lahoreinternational.com USA: Louisville KY airport named after Muhammad Ali, the Greatest

ore than 30 years before his funeral citizen, a man whose gravesite was adorned with a procession crept along West Broadway dozen roses Saturday morning — 11 red, one white. toward Cave Hill Cemetery, Muhammad And while we’re on the subject, how about rebranding MAli stood where a McDonald’s stands now, the airport’s A & B concourses, “Butterfly” and “Bee?” autographing copies of the Quran, making indelible As Abe Lincoln once observed at a dedication memories. ceremony, it is altogether fitting and proper that we “He made sure he made contact with every kid in that should do this. Though Ali remains a polarizing figure, crowd,” Robert Holmes III remembered Saturday. “I still anathema to some because of his conscientious was one of those kids. It made a lasting impression on objection to the Vietnam war, his resistance to the my life.” draft was ostensibly based on principle rather than Raised Baptist, Holmes never dared to read Islam’s dubious bone spurs. most sacred text, and he lost track of the copy Ali gave That there are people who will condemn the former him long ago. Yet for the 31 months since Ali’s death, and condone the latter says something disturbing Holmes has been one of the champ’s most devoted about racial politics and partisan hypocrisy in this champions. country. He started the petition drive that produced 14,000 “You can imagine the hatred and the vitriol that signatures in favor of renaming Louisville’s airport I received over time,” said Holmes, a 47-year-old after Ali, and he led a sometimes lonely fight with the educator at Noe Middle School. “My faith waned. I mayor’s office and at airport authority meetings. He said it’s probably not going to happen during my was growing resigned to defeat before his cause came lifetime. For me on a personal level, it showed that if off the mat Wednesday to score a decisive victory. I’m obedient to God, God can move mountains. He Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport might can do the heavy lifting.” be a mouthful, but it is an enormous improvement Holmes suspects the lifting became lighter after on the former Standiford Field, named for a U.S. Greg Fischer won a third term as Louisville’s mayor, senator who died 16 years before the Wright Brothers knowing he could not run for a fourth until after he went airborne. The new name links the city’s most had been out of office for four years. prominent transportation hub with its most famous www.lahoreinternational.com 31 Monthly LAHORE International “The mayor was gearing up for a campaign,” Holmes said. “To touch on the Ali renaming would have been an extra bag for him to carry. Even in 2019, the idea of renaming the airport is not well-received by all Louisvillians.” “Mayor (Fischer) had been looking for an appropriate way to honor Ali since his death,” said Fischer’s spokeswoman, Jean Porter. “... (The) mayor is pleased that Mr. Holmes and so many others agree it’s a great UN way to go.” Demographic If Fischer’s lame-duck agenda is more ambitious than were his previous platforms, it’s fair to say report his enthusiasm for Ali has been consistent and unequivocal. Moreover, the airport authority’s working group has been considering renaming the There are 7.8Billion people on planet. (earth). facility after Ali since at least November 2017. The report shows These things don’t always happen quickly. Though Women = 5.6Billion- Men = 2.2Billion airports in New York and California were rechristened So, they advised women to be careful in showing within months of the deaths of John F. Kennedy and attitudes to any man because out of the 2.2 Billion men: John Wayne, Chicago’s Orchard Depot Airport was not renamed after Butch O’Hare until six years after • One billion are married already. the Medal of Honor recipient was shot down in the • 130 million are in prison. Pacific theater. Louis Armstrong had been dead for 30 • 70 million are mentally ill. years before New Orleans changed its airport’s name That means that we have just about 1 billion men to honor the great jazz trumpeter. available for marriage and out of the 1billion: Ali’s aversion to air travel was so great that he had • 50% are jobless to be persuaded to participate in the 1960 Summer • 3% are gay Olympics in Rome. Later, he reportedly traveled with • 5% are Catholic Priests his own personal parachute, betraying a level of fear in • 10% are your relatives stark contrast to his trademark bravado. • 35% are above 66years Though it is probably apocryphal, the story is told that For details visit UN demography report. Ali once boarded a plane without fastening his seat https://www.independent.ng/breaking-un-publish- belt. Reminded to buckle up by the flight attendant, es-1st-quarter-demography-report-2019/ Ali responded, “Superman don’t need no seat belt.” “Superman,” the flight attendant replied, “don’t need no airplane.” https://www.courier-journal.com/story/ sports/2019/01/19/louisville-muhammad-ali- international-airport-properly-named-citys-most- famous/2624124002/

Monthly LAHORE International 32 www.lahoreinternational.com Coretz Masto said. USA: A rare Correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti received a rare tour of the tunnel at Yucca Mountain. He asked William Boyle, tour of the from the Department of Energy, how good a site it rep- resents for storing the country’s nuclear waste, which tunnel that is will remain toxic for thousands of years. “Well, the department felt it was good enough that we ground zero for submitted the license application in 2008,” Boyle replied. “Do you agree with that submission?” Vigliotti asked. “It a nuclear waste wouldn’t have been submitted if I didn’t agree,” he said. But Sen. Cortez Masto disagrees. She says some scien- tists worry that water in the ground will mix with nucle- controversy ar waste and enter the drinking supply of small, nearby farming communities. Boyle feels that risk is safely man- About 100 miles outside Las Vegas, deep in a remote ageable. patch of desert, is a $19 billion hole in the ground. That’s The senator says the fight is over political science: “When how much it has cost to fight over and build a five-mile they passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act we didn’t have test tunnel under Yucca Mountain. Now largely aban- any seniority at the time, in the state of Nevada, to be doned for almost a decade, it was designed to be the an- able to change that. And so literally, it got crammed swer to America’s nuclear waste problem – a problem down Nevada’s throat.” still piling up at faraway places, like San Onofre Nuclear Vigliotti asked, “At what point does time just run out in Power Plant, midway between Los Angeles and San Die- the debate and it becomes just such an issue that, [with] go, where engineers produced power for half a century. all of this waste collecting, we just say we have to put this San Onofre shut down in 2012. About 50 years’ worth somewhere?” of spent radioactive spent nuclear fuel – 536 tons of it – “It’s my impression that if we were to ask the people is temporarily buried beneath a massive concrete slab. that live near San Onofre, live near San Diego, that they Ron Pontes, who helps manage the decommissioning reached that point a while ago,” Boyle replied. of San Onofre, said, “The fact that Yucca Mountain had Temporarily storing nuclear waste at places like San On- failed to materialize as the nation’s repository for spent ofre is costing hundreds of millions of dollars – money nuclear fuel has stranded fuel, not only at this site but subsidized by utility customers, taxpayers, and the very at sites across the nation.” Congress designated Yucca same federal government that can’t agree on what to do Mountain as the location for a national permanent nu- with it. clear waste repository back in 1987. A test tunnel was dug but never licensed. Ron Pontes said, “We collected money from our cus- tomers that went to the federal government, and they Wyoming Senator John Barrasso is now pushing legisla- haven’t used that money to build anything. We would tion that would restart the licensing of Yucca Mountain, like to see the government do their job and come get the a process the Obama administration put on hold almost fuel like they promised.” a decade ago after opposition from a bipartisan group of Nevada politicians. ttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/yucca-mountain-nucle- ar-waste-storage-controversy/?ftag=CNM-00-10aac3a “It is an isolated location which has the right geology which can make the difference for safe use of nuclear power and storage of nuclear waste for generations and generations to come,” said Sen. Barrasso. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada has been fighting Yucca Mountain for more than 20 years. “Part of the infrastructure that is necessary is to build all of the rail lines that need to come across Nevada, across this country, to bring it there,” said Sen. Cortez Masto. “And a lot of those rail lines and the shipments would come right through the heart of Las Vegas.” She said it would create a bottleneck for shipments of About 50 years’ worth of spent nuclear fuel is temporarily housed radioactive waste if Yucca Mountain goes online. “Two at the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant in Cali- shipments a day for 50 years – what? I mean, it’s crazy,” fornia. www.lahoreinternational.com 33 Monthly LAHORE International Monthly LAHORE International 34 www.lahoreinternational.com