3 million Muslims pray for world peace

InFront

it's been a bit quiet here lately, amid all of the bad stuff going on involving Muslims and the middle east right now, here is a 'good news story'. Al-hamdulillah, Praise Allah.

http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Bangladesh/10101991.html

Tongi: About 3 million Muslim devotees raised their hands in prayer seeking global peace and harmony at one of the world's biggest mass religious congregations, police and organisers said yesterday.

The final prayer capped a three-day Islamic gathering on the sandy banks of the River Turag outside Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.

"We estimate at least 3 million people are at the prayer. There were about 2.5 million devotees at the final prayer last year," police official Kaium Biswas said. Many of the pilgrims were on boats or on the rooftops of nearby buildings as the crowd overflowed the designated venue.

President Iajuddin Ahmad, the country's interim leader Fakhruddin Ahmad and two former Prime Ministers - Khaleda Zia and Shaikh Hasina - joined the prayer on the final day of the gathering.

Many devotees from the capital left work early to join the prayer.

"It's a great feeling. I feel proud that I'm among millions of people seeking divine blessings for peace in the world," said Abdul Malek, who closed his convenience store in Dhaka to join the festival.

Female devotees are not usually allowed to attend, but hundreds of women gathered in nearby villages to take part in the event.

About 20,000 security officials, including troops, have been deployed to prevent any violence, said police official Biswas, following months of often violent protests to push for electoral reform.

Abdur Rahim, a spokesman for Tablig Jamaat, an organisation of Islamic preachers that sponsored the event, has said several thousands of the worshippers were from outside Bangladesh.

The annual World Congregation of Muslims has been held each year since 1966 on the banks of the River Turag in Tongi, just north of the capital, Dhaka.

wes

Be nice if this sort of thing was seen in the main stream press.

cold_filter

Yep it would, a lot of people seem to think that every muslim/arab looking person, is out to get them, lets hope we sort things out before the west goes to war with islam or they other way round

DublinWriter

I've been reading a lot recently about how Arab scholars 'rescued' the works of Aristotle and kept it safe in their major libraries, translated into Arabic, until it was rediscovered by European scholars in the Muslim library of Toledo in the 15th Century and translated into Latin.

Many argue that without the discovery of the works of Aristotle, lost for 1,000 years, that the European Renaissance would never have happened.

This seems to be a major historical event overlooked by history for years; the equivalent today would be like finding 3,000 lost pages by Einstein where he completed Unified Field Theory and came up with a practical way to implement Nuclear Fusion!

The whole debt owed by Western Civilisation for it's very existance today thanks to Muslim scholars seems to be completely unpaid.

wes

Well I think it is known to historians. Its just that everything is kept very Euro-centric and it tends not to be mentioned. The Muslim world wasn't always the great big mess it is today. What we see today in the Muslim world is an equivalent darks ages to that which Europe went through.

DublinWriter

wes wrote:

Well I think it is known to historians. Its just that everything is kept very Euro-centric and it tends not to be mentioned. The Muslim world wasn't always the great big mess it is today. What we see today in the Muslim world is an equivalent darks ages to that which Europe went through.

Your statement is insulting on a number of levels.

Firstly, I'm assuming you interchange the words 'Arab' and 'Muslim' the way modern political commentators banter around the words 'Catholic' and 'Nationalist' and 'Protestant' and 'Loyalist' without distinction.

Consider the great IRA-heros such as Tone, Emmet and Casement, all Protestant. Consider the Catholic supporter of the Union, William Joyce.

It's troublesome in that it tends to over-simplify a very complex political situation.

Secondly, you are automatically subscribing to the cultural-authoritianarist school of international politics.

You are assuming the Muslim world never had its own cultural renaissance. It actually did, at least 400 years before the European renaissance in the form of the Southern Spanish Muslim world of the 13th century. The complete works of Aristotle would be completely lost to Western Culture if it wasn’t for Muslim scholarship.

Your argument has a central flaw in that you assume the cultural merit and achievements of any particular culture to be cumulative...that each generation improves and betters on their ancestors.

This is widely proven to be a false assumption. Look at the way that 600 years after the Renaissance that southern states in the USA are trying to re-introduce creationism into the school curriculum. Observe how the 'leader of the free world' publicly stated that God told him to invade Iraq, and then the whole myth of the theory of cultural authority will crumble to the floor.

wes

DublinWriter wrote:

Your statement is insulting on a number of levels.

Firstly, I'm assuming you interchange the words 'Arab' and 'Muslim' the way modern political commentators banter around the words 'Catholic' and 'Nationalist' and 'Protestant' and 'Loyalist' without distinction.

Consider the great IRA-heros such as Tone, Emmet and Casement, all Protestant. Consider the Catholic supporter of the Union, William Joyce.

It's troublesome in that it tends to over-simplify a very complex political situation.

Secondly, you are automatically subscribing to the cultural-authoritianarist school of international politics.

You are assuming the Muslim world never had its own cultural renaissance. It actually did, at least 400 years before the European renaissance in the form of the Southern Spanish Muslim world of the 13th century. The complete works of Aristotle would be completely lost to Western Culture if it wasn’t for Muslim scholarship.

Your argument has a central flaw in that you assume the cultural merit and achievements of any particular culture to be cumulative...that each generation improves and betters on their ancestors.

This is widely proven to be a false assumption. Look at the way that 600 years after the Renaissance that southern states in the USA are trying to re-introduce creationism into the school curriculum. Observe how the 'leader of the free world' publicly stated that God told him to invade Iraq, and then the whole myth of the theory of cultural authority will crumble to the floor.

I didn't mean to be insulting. I am aware of all those. I just think there are a lot of trouble in many Muslim nations e.g. Sudan and Darfur, hence the dark ages comment. I also have family in Kashmir who are in danger from war if the Pakistani's and Indians can't get along.

There are many places that are doing pretty good as well e.g. Turkey and Malaysia for example. It was a throw away comment, it was not meant to be anything more. I think I went over board with my comment. I do think I was rash and apologize if I did cause offense.

InFront

I didn't see anything insulting in what wes said at all, it seems like a perfectly reasonable comment. Islam is going through a period of darkness that it has never experienced on such a worldwide level Al-hamdulillah 'ala kool ahal - (Praise Allah in all circumstances).
This new departure is something quite unprecedented, and a sad situation for Muslims, and for those many non Muslims, who understand the real messages of Islam.

"Allah is the Protecting Guardian of those who believe. He brings them out of darkness into light"-AL-BAQARA, 257

the_new_mr

May God protect your family Wes and hopefully peace will finally be found in that troubled and unfortunately forgotten about region.

I also did not see anything insulting in Wes' comment. We are in a dark age The Muslim world has to clean themselves up.