Author: mara.ahmed

The Stunning Beauty of Islamic Geometric Patterns

“Designers and mathematicians are pretty sure that Islamic geometric patterns represent philosophical and religious concepts. For example, if you look closely at the windows of Suleymaniye, you will see a star pattern that resembles the cosmos. Some astronomers actually believed that this was a kind of a union or maybe a direction or a connection towards the universe in the heavens beyond.” More here.

India’s citizenship bill has echoes of Myanmar’s dark path

Amy Kazmin: Back in 1982, Myanmar adopted a citizenship law recognising eight ethnic groups as “national races”, whose members were entitled to citizenship. But Rohingya — a mostly-Muslim population reviled by Burmese as illegal migrants from Bangladesh — were excluded. They instead needed “conclusive evidence” that their ancestors had lived in Burma prior to its 1948 independence — impossible for most to provide.

Rohingya remained in Myanmar despite tight restrictions on their movement, education, employment and marriage. Decades of persecution culminated in the mass expulsion of 700,000 Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh in 2017.

The context for the Indian bill has also raised alarms. The government — which claims India is being swamped by illegal Muslim migrants from Bangladesh — is gearing up for a massive national exercise to assess which of India’s 1.3bn residents is eligible for citizenship.

Echoing demands once made on Rohingya, Indians are expected to have to prove their ancestors were resident in India in the first years after independence — or face the prospect of being declared illegal migrants, liable to detention and deportation.

Yet Hindus and other groups now deemed refugees by the new rules will be protected. The spectre of statelessness falls therefore mainly on Muslims.

Country has incorporated religious criteria into its naturalisation and refugee policies. More here.

The Citizenship Amendment Act and its implications

From Sana Din: I’ve been trying to find the emotional strength to address how devastating the Citizenship Amendment Act is for Indian Muslims and the region as a whole. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which was passed in both houses of Indian Parliament on Wednesday is the single most destructive piece of legislation since Partition, putting the onus of proving one’s citizenship explicitly on Indian Muslims.

The law allows for anyone who isn’t Muslim from neighboring countries to become an Indian citizen. CAA was designed to function as a citizenship test for India’s Muslim population of 200 million, creating the world’s largest stateless population.

About 50 percent of Indian Muslims are illiterate, many don’t know their birthdates, where they were born, or which hospital provided these documents; all of which compound the impact of this discriminatory law. 

Both CAA and the National Registration of Citizens (NRC) work to make a stateless Muslim population that can be imprisoned in detentions centers. Muslims have begun to be detained in makeshift detention centers and more are being constructed.

My Islam Be Black

“My mother knew
how to keep herself together in this faith.
She taught me how to balance two worlds:
how to fry fish in steamy masjid kitchens
and where to place the wine glass and soup spoon on a proper dinner table.
She passed down her mother’s slips and camisoles, opera gloves and mink stoles, turned Sunday hats into Friday tams, switched between hot combs and hijab pins…”

More here.