In mankind’s eagerness to ‘progress’ and ‘develop’ sight has been lost of the finite and delicate nature of planet Earth and of humanity’s place in it. As a consequence the global climate has become unbalanced, leading to an increasing risk of floods, droughts and severe storms the world over. In its 4th Assessment Report, the Inter-governmental Panel [...]
It is not very often that one feels that they are a witness to a living moment of history. Last night was one of the rare privileges that I was accorded to see history in the making. I had the honour of attending the inaugural awards dinner for the Muslim Women’s Sports Federation (MWSF) held [...]
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth died as he had lived, fighting strongly yet always in the shadows. His death on October 5, 2011 was not only overshadowed by the passing of another transformational American icon, Apple founder Steve Jobs, but was also later overshadowed by the celebration of the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Memorial in [...]
The riots that have engulfed London and other major cities in the United Kingdom over the last week are finally receding in intensity but in the wake of the horrific scenes of violence, looting and arson that has left people shaken, the real issues look set to take centre stage especially as post mortems are [...]
Last night as a birthday treat for my wife, I took her to see the hit musicalWicked in London. Needless to say, I loved the whole story and the interconnection it has from the original story ‘Wizard of Oz’ especially as it tries to provide some insight into the origins of some of the main and [...]
As one gets older it is not surprising that one’s thoughts turns to how life was so much better in one’s youth. It just seems that the world is a much more different place today than it ever was. Some of it is really exciting in terms of the progress made in technology but there [...]
In 1989, Mohamed Lateef had just got married and had taken ownership of a rice farm and was looking to settle down to a quiet life of farming and raising his family. That dream quickly shattered in 1990, when Lateef and 70,000 other members from the Muslim community were forcibly evicted from Northern Sri Lanka [...]
The moment was poignant. A Buddhist Monk in Sri Lanka addressing a group of religious leaders in Tamil. The meeting was held by the North East Interfaith Forum at the Mahatma Ghandi Centre in Colombo in January 2011 to discuss practical actions that religious leaders could take towards post conflict reconciliation in the country. For [...]
The story of the ‘The Imam and The Pastor’, is one that needs to be revisited to fully comprehend the concept of the need to move beyond the concept of a clash between each other to reaching out and developing an alliance with ‘the other’. Emerging from the 1990s in Northern Nigeria after being in [...]
Eid has come and gone and as the dust settles, I am trying to reflect on the day gone by and find out exactly what has happened to Eid? I think we are suffering from an intellectual inferiority complex. How did it go from being one of spiritual upliftment to one of commercial value? Have [...]
