FROM MAULANA’S DESK

The modern age can thus be termed an age of diaspora for Muslims. Previously the Muslims had gone into diaspora after the death of the Prophet in 632 CE. They moved out of Arabia and spread out all over the inhabited world of that time. In these foreign lands, Muslims came as bearers of the divine message. Before the Prophet, Islam had been only a regional religion, but later it became an international religion—all this happened solely due to the seventh century diaspora of Muslims. In earlier times, the Muslim diaspora had played a peaceful role in the regions they entered—that is, they took the message of Islam to the new populations they encountered. However, in the present age, the Muslim diaspora is performing a completely opposite role. Their activities have led to the spread of intolerance, hate, violence and even suicide bombing in the countries in which they reside. Some Muslims are engaged in all of this directly while others’ involvement in this is indirect in that they do not openly condemn the heinous acts committed in the name of their religion. Although Muslims perpetrate these acts in the name of Islam, their actions are in truth only doing a disservice to Islam. News of this “disservice to Islam” can be continually seen in the media. The latest news of this kind has come from Australia. The abovecited newsreport is very alarming for Muslims. Prior to this, everyone enjoyed complete freedom in Australia. But Australian Muslims, who had originally come as immigrants, imitated Muslims living in other countries by importing the “violent Islam” to Australia. As a result, to maintain peace the Australian administration took the decision to pass a new law which will give the police more power to curb violence. This step from the Australian administration was quite natural according to the situation that presently exists there. Australia is a peace-loving country and desires a peaceful atmosphere to prevail. For this reason, in giving more powers to its police personnel to control terrorism, the Australian administration cannot be blamed for ignoring the plea of human rights violation. As the media also states, the Australian Muslim leadership has made a very unwise plan against the backdrop of the violence that some Muslims have committed. They have demanded that the taxpayer money meant for counter-terrorism initiatives be used for creating spaces for Muslim youth to gather and talk about issues, even if it involves speaking in an inflammatory manner. This request would certainly be unacceptable to an administration which is working towards putting an end to the