Ramadan: It’s time for reflection and privation; not for gossip

Holy month of Ramadan is a time for reflection and privation, heightened devotion and worship. It is not about killing time by gossiping on the shop-fronts or lanes and bylanes of residential localities. It never was so, and this time around with shutdown in place to contain the spread COVID-19 pandemic, the need to stay […]

Tyrant’s excuses: Blamed them for ‘Corona Jehad’, now for ‘Plasma Jehad’ too!

They had the cheek to hurl racial slur “Corona Jehad” on an entire community, now they must also show some courage to acknowledge and appreciate what should be, in their coinage, seen as “Plasma Jehad”. It does not hurt when the jokers of Indian media, the television anchors, vent out worst communal prejudices against a […]

Praying at home is new normal this Ramadan

Risking self may be ok, but risking others isn’t as faith makes me personally responsible for the well-being of fellow people

Desperate times call for desperate moves. This is how one could describe suspension of congregational prayers at the mosques throughout the world. As the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims have begun observing the holy month of Ramadan, it is going to be a different experience this time as the unprecedented global pandemic — COVID-19 — is […]

Ramadhan: Time to pray for humankind’s safety from the ‘safety of our homes’

Not saying Taraweeh prayers in mosques is indeed painful, but legal fatwas and medical advice suggest it’s the way to go about it

With the holy month of Ramadan beginning, possibly on April 25, governments world-over are worried as to how their Muslim populations would behave. Will they stay home for their own and others’ safety the way they have been doing for over a month now? As the COVID-19 pandemic is refusing to die down, much of […]

Why baptize COVID-19; viruses do not need such classifications!

Whatever is known of the novel coronavirus thus far informs that like other viruses and bacteria, this invisible creature does not belong to any particular faith tradition, or sex, or possess any other such markers, which humans so obsessively assign to themselves for the purpose of othering the OTHER. However, for the past few days […]

COVID-19: Praise them as warriors, but doctors are not Kamikaze

A bomb disposal squad being summoned to go and inspect and then also neutralize a ticking bomb is normal. What is, however, not be normal is to ask the bomb experts to do it with bare hands, without proper tools and necessary protective gear that are needed to carry out this dangerous job. This is […]

Lessons must be learnt from Nizamuddin incident

COVID-19: Just stay home; it’s better for you, and others too

Today Late Maulana Elyas will be a worried man, and more than that, a very sad man. Reason being that the movement he started in early 1920s and which has by now grown into one of the biggest proselytization movements in the world — doubtlessly the biggest among the Muslims — has come under the […]

COVID-19: Rethink needed

See the tragedy -- while military warehouses are overflowing with bombs, bullets and mortars that could wipe the life out of this globe in a matter of days if not hours, there is no such thing as on date which could inflict a similar fatal strike on novel coronavirus.

The disconcerting helplessness inflicted by the COVID-19 has exposed vital chinks in the traditional military wisdom. The frustrating inability of even the world’s best military means and technology to defend humankind against the threats posed by COVID-19 has put a big question mark over the utility of military industrial complex, which has for decades been […]