Woman Islamic scholar Mariam Jameela passes away

[email protected] (CD Network)
November 1, 2012

maryam-jameelah

Lahore, November 1: Islamic scholar Maryam Jameelah who reverted to Islam at the age of 27 passed away here on October 31 after prolonged illness aging 78.

The deceased was suffering from illness from the past several years because of her age for which she was also shifted to hospital at times.

Maryam Jameelah was born Margaret Marcus to a Jewish family in New Rochelle, NY, on May 23, 1934. She grew up in a secular environment, but at the age of nineteen, while a student at New York University, she developed a keen interest in religion.

Unable to find spiritual guidance in her immediate environment, she looked to other faiths. Her search brought her into contact with an array of spiritual orders, religious cults, and world religions; she became acquainted with Islam around 1954. She was then greatly impressed by Marmaduke Pickthall's The Meaning of the Glorious Koran and by the works of Muhammad Asad, himself a convert from Judaism to Islam. Jameelah cites Asad's The Road to Mecca and Islam at Crossroads as critical influences on her decision to become a Muslim.


Through her readings in Islam she developed a bond with the religion and became a vocal spokesperson for the faith, defending Muslim beliefs against Western criticism and championing such Muslim causes as that of the Palestinians. Her views created much tension in her personal life, but she continued to pursue her cause.


She embraced Islam in New York on May 24, 1961, and soon after began to write for the Muslim Digest of Durban, South Africa. Her articles outlined a pristine view of Islam and sought to establish the truth of the religion through debates with critics. Through the journal, Jameelah became acquainted with the works of Mawlana Sayyid Abu Ala Mawdudi, the founder of the Jamaati Islami (Islamic Party) of Pakistan, who was also a contributor to the journal.


Jameelah was impressed by Mawdudi's views and began to correspond with him. Their letters between 1960 and 1962, later published in a volume entitled Correspondences between Maulana Mawdoodi and Maryam Jameelah, discussed a variety of issues from the discourse between Islam and the West, to Jameelah's personal spiritual concerns.


Jameelah traveled to Pakistan in 1962 on Mawdudi's advice and joined his household in Lahore. She soon married Muhammad Yusuf Khan, as his second wife.


Since settling in Pakistan, she has written an impressive number of books, which adumbrated the Jamaati Islami's ideology in a systematic fashion. Although she never formally joined the party, she became one of its chief ideologists.


Jameelah has been particularly concerned with the debate between Islam and the West, an important, albeit not central, aspect of Mawdudi's thought.


Her significance, however, does not lie in the force of her observations, but in the manner in which she articulates an internally consistent paradigm for revivalism's rejection of the West. In this regard, her influence far exceeds the boundaries of the Jamaati Islami and has been important in the development of the Muslim world.

Her writings include marvelous religious and intellectual materials. A list of her articles and books is mentioned below,
  • Islam and modernism
  • Islam versus the west
  • Islam in theory and practice
  • Islam versus ahl al kitab past and present
  • Ahmad khalil
  • Islam and orientalism
  • Western civilization condemned by itself
  • Correspondence between maulana maudoodi and maryum jameelah
  • Islam and western society
  • A manifesto of the Islamic movement
  • Is western civilization universal
  • Who is Maudoodi ?
  • Why I embraced Islam?
  • Islam and the Muslim woman today
  • Islam and social habits
  • Islamic culture in theory and practice
  • Three great Islamic movements in the Arab world of the recent past
  • Shaikh hasan al banna and ikhwan al muslimun
  • A great Islamic movement in turkey
  • Two mujahidin of the recent past and their struggle for freedom against foreign rule
  • The generation gap its causes and consequences
  • Westernization versus Muslims
  • Westernization and human welfare
  • Modern technology and the dehumanization of man
  • Islam and modern man

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News Network
May 9,2020

London, May 9: Air India's first evacuation flight from London will be taking off for Mumbai today.

The screening of passengers is underway.

"Air India's first evacuation flight from London taking off for Mumbai today at 1200. Flight is 100% booked! Shubh Yatra. Please stay in touch. GoI working to send more evacuation flights!" High Commission of India, London said in a tweet.

On Monday, India announced had that it will begin phased repatriation of its citizens stranded abroad from May 7.

The government said that Air India will operate 64 flights in the first week from May 7 to May 13 to bring back around 15,000 Indian nationals.

On day three of the 'Vande Bharat Mission', flights carrying Indians from the Gulf countries, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh and Malaysia will arrive in India.

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News Network
May 29,2020

Washington, May 29: Reiterating his offer to mediate on the border dispute between India and China, US President Donald Trump has said that he spoke with Narendra Modi about the "big conflict" and asserted that the Indian Prime Minister is not in a "good mood" over the latest flare-ups between the two countries.

Speaking with the reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday, Trump said a "big conflict" was going on between India and China.

"I like your prime minister a lot. He is a great gentleman," the president said.

"Have a big conflict …India and China. Two countries with 1.4 billion people (each). Two countries with very powerful militaries. India is not happy and probably China is not happy," he said when asked if he was worried about the border situation between India and China.

"I can tell you; I did speak to Prime Minister Modi. He is not in a good mood about what is going on with China," Trump said.

A day earlier, the president offered to mediate between India and China.

Trump on Wednesday said in a tweet that he was "ready, willing and able to mediate" between the two countries.

Responding to a question on his tweet, Trump reiterated his offer, saying if called for help, "I would do that (mediate). If they thought it would help" about "mediate or arbitrate, I would do that," he said.

India on Wednesday said it was engaged with China to peacefully resolve the border row, in a carefully crafted reaction to Trump's offer to arbitrate between the two Asian giants to settle their decades-old dispute.

"We are engaged with the Chinese side to peacefully resolve it," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, replying to a volley of questions at an online media briefing.

While the Chinese Foreign Ministry is yet to react to Trump's tweet which appears to have caught Beijing by surprise, an op-ed in the state-run Global Times said both countries did not need such a help from the US President.

"The latest dispute can be solved bilaterally by China and India. The two countries should keep alert on the US, which exploits every chance to create waves that jeopardise regional peace and order," it said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that both China and India have proper mechanisms and communication channels to resolve the issues through dialogue and consultations.

Trump previously offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, a proposal which was rejected by New Delhi.

The situation in eastern Ladakh deteriorated after around 250 Chinese and Indian soldiers were engaged in a violent face-off on the evening of May 5 which spilled over to the next day before the two sides agreed to "disengage" following a meeting at the level of local commanders.

Over 100 Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in the violence.

The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

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News Network
June 2,2020

London/Milan, Jun 2: World Health Organization experts and a range of other scientists said on Monday there was no evidence to support an assertion by a high profile Italian doctor that the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic has been losing potency.

Professor Alberto Zangrillo, head of intensive care at Italy's San Raffaele Hospital in Lombardy, which bore the brunt of Italy's COVID-19 epidemic, on Sunday told state television that the new coronavirus "clinically no longer exists".

But WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, as well as several other experts on viruses and infectious diseases, said Zangrillo's comments were not supported by scientific evidence.

There is no data to show the new coronavirus is changing significantly, either in its form of transmission or in the severity of the disease it causes, they said.

"In terms of transmissibility, that has not changed, in terms of severity, that has not changed," Van Kerkhove told reporters.

It is not unusual for viruses to mutate and adapt as they spread, and the debate on Monday highlights how scientists are monitoring and tracking the new virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed more than 370,000 people and infected more than 6 million.

Martin Hibberd, a professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said major studies looking at genetic changes in the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 did not support the idea that it was becoming less potent, or weakening in any way.

"With data from more than 35,000 whole virus genomes, there is currently no evidence that there is any significant difference relating to severity," he said in an emailed comment.

Zangrillo, well known in Italy as the personal doctor of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said his comments were backed up by a study conducted by a fellow scientist, Massimo Clementi, which Zangrillo said would be published next week.

Zangrillo told Reuters: "We have never said that the virus has changed, we said that the interaction between the virus and the host has definitely changed."

He said this could be due either to different characteristics of the virus, which he said they had not yet identified, or different characteristics in those infected.

The study by Clementi, who is director of the microbiology and virology laboratory of San Raffaele, compared virus samples from COVID-19 patients at the Milan-based hospital in March with samples from patients with the disease in May.

"The result was unambiguous: an extremely significant difference between the viral load of patients admitted in March compared to" those admitted last month, Zangrillo said.

Oscar MacLean, an expert at the University of Glasgow's Centre for Virus Research, said suggestions that the virus was weakening were "not supported by anything in the scientific literature and also seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds."

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