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SHAFAQNA – In one coer of Kathmandu’s Jame Masjid, a stone’s throw from the former-royal-palace-tued-museum, lies the tomb of Begum Hazrat Mahal – forlo and sho of its past grandeur.

Mahal was the queen of Awadh, a princely state in neighbouring India, and the face of the 1857 rebellion against the British. She fled the Indian city of Lucknow after the revolt was crushed, and the then ruler of Nepal, Jung Bahadur Thapa, who had taken his army to help the British quell the rebellion and plunder the city, offered her asylum.

M Hussain, the secretary of Jame Masjid, says that many of Mahal’s supporters followed her to Nepal.

But Islam had, in fact, been introduced to Nepal long before that.

Kashmiri traders first arrived in Kathmandu in the 15th century on their way to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

Many of them settled in what was then known as Kantipur and now as Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur during the rule of King Ratna Malla.

The 500-year-old Kashmiri Takia mosque, a few hundred yards from the palace in Kathmandu, is a testimony to this history.

“Muslims lived as a silent minority for centuries at the goodwill of the Nepali state,” explains Hussain.

But, in recent years – inspired by the Maoist rebellion that lasted from 1996 until 2006 – they have become more vocal and visible.

“The Maoist rebellion paved the way for their [Muslims] political and cultural rights,” Hussain says, sitting in his small office in the mosque premises.

Muslim festivals were declared public holidays for the first time in 2008 – the year the monarchy was abolished and a democratically elected govement led by Maoists took office.

The tomb of Begam Hazrat Mahal, the queen of Awadh, a former princely state in India [Prabhat R Jha/Al Jazeera]

‘Escape from death’

More than 500km away from Kathmandu, in Banke district, which borders India, green flags with Quranic verses ado Muslim homes to mark the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday – a festival mostly observed by South Asian Muslims.

Such public displays are a reflection of the newly recognised religious and cultural rights of Nepal’s minorities and indigenous groups.

Jame Masjid in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital [Prabhat R Jha/Al Jazeera]

Banke is located in the southe plains, known as the Tarai or Madhes region, which is home to 95 percent of the country’s Muslims.

Unlike their counterparts in the Kathmandu valley, an overwhelming majority of the Muslims in this area are poor and landless. Their political under-representation and negligible presence within the job market is in keeping with the broader marginalisation of the Madhesi population of which they are a part.

Alam Khan, 28, is among the few Muslims who have climbed the economic ladder. Khan is a resident of Nepalgunj in Banke and works for the non-govement organisation THRD Alliance, which campaigns against extra-judicial killings, torture and illegal arrests in the Madhes region.

“Everyone should get rights and [live with] dignity,” Alam says in his tiny office in Nepalgunj’s Rani Talau area.

He was detained by the police for 17 days in 2007 when Madhesis began protesting against the discrimination they experienced.

The Madhesis, who are culturally close to their neighbours on the other side of the border with India, have long complained that the country is economically and politically dominated by upper-caste Nepalis from the hilly parts of the country.

“I was charged with murder and sedition for interviewing an underground Madhesi leader,” explains Khan, who worked as a joualist before joining THRD Alliance.

“They could not prove anything,” he adds.

It was, he says, an “escape from death”.

Now Khan travels to remote parts of Nepal to document extra-judicial killings and illegal detentions.

Despite opposition from his family, he has married a non-Muslim, ethnic Magarwoman.

“When I was in police custody she stood behind me,” he explains. “I decided that I had to marry her.”

Khan says his family has since come to accept his wife, who is now studying to become a nurse.

Muslim festivals were declared public holidays in 2008 [Prabhat R Jha/Al Jazeera]

Educationally disadvantaged

In a country where interfaith and inter-caste marriages are rare, Khan has broken many societal norms and continues to challenge them.

Muslims are one of the country’s most disadvantaged groups, and Muslim women are particularly hard hit.

Only 26 percent of Muslim women in Nepal are literate – the national average for women is 55 percent – while just 12 percent of Muslim girls complete secondary school.

Abdul Rahman, the former chairman of the Nepalgunj Jame Masjid, attributes this, in part, to a perceived incompatibility between some Islamic values and the public school system. “Muslim girls who observe purdah [wearing hijab or niqab] attract attention,” he says. “They [are looked at as though they are] aliens. It’s a mental torture.”

The softly spoken 52-year-old says the govement should either give a “special package [scholarships or financial assistance] to Muslims for their education or give us freedom to educate our kids according to Islamic values”.

There were fewer than 5,000 Muslim graduates and postgraduates in 2011, according to that year’s census.

There were fewer than 5,000 Muslim graduates and postgraduates in 2011, according to that year’s census [Prabhat R Jha/Al Jazeera]

The post-revolutionary democratic govements have acknowledged the conces of the community, and identified madrasas as a possible tool for improving access to education among Muslims.

The madrasa board was formed in 2007 and, for the first time, courses were also made available in Urdu, which is spoken by many of the country’s Muslims.

The govement promised financial aid to registered madrasas on the condition that they would teach science, mathematics, English and Nepali.

The languages spoken by other ethnic groups, such as the Magars and Tamangs, were also recognised. It was in sharp contrast to the time of the monarchy, when only the Nepali language was promoted.

But nearly a decade after the policy was announced, more than half of the 2,000 madrasas in Nepal have yet to be registered, and those that are complain of inadequate help.

Badre Alam Khan, who runs Aisha Banat, an English medium madrasa for girls, says govement aid has been insufficient.

The madrasa, which opened with six students in 2006, now teaches 406 girls. Others want to join but a lack of infrastructure and teachers means the school cannot accept any more students, says Khan.

“We started this madrasa which allows girls to observe purdah. We are imparting mode education along with Islamic education,” explains Talat Parveen, the school’s principal.

Parveen, who is from the Indian city of Gorakhpur but whose husband is from Nepal, believes poverty stops many of the country’s Muslims from pursuing a higher education.

“There is a need for more colleges and schools with quality education,” says the 28-year-old.

“Purdah does not stop you from anything. I [have a] Masters in English literature and [the] niqab did not come in my way.”

Abdul Qawi, a 36-year-old social worker, believes special programmes such as free education, hostels and scholarships are needed to lift Muslims out of poverty. “But this is not being done,” he says.

A wall in a madrasa classroom in Nepalgunj [Prabhat R Jha/Al Jazeera]

A brighter future

Community leaders believe Muslims, who form about 5 percent of Nepal’s 30 million population, are a distinct group.

“Though Muslims live in Madhes their culture is different from other groups,” says Athar Hussain Faruqi, a local leader of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

“Our identity should be different on the basis of culture, language, economic activity,” Faruqi adds.

The country’s new constitution, which came into effect in 2015, includes Muslims for the first time, adding them to a list of marginalised groups.

The constitution also ensures a job quota for Muslims, who currently fill less than 1 percent of civil service positions.

Many Muslims are feeling positive about what the future may hold. Nepalgunj, which has the largest Muslim population of any of Nepal’s cities, boasts a Muslim community radio station, schools and charitable organisations all run by the minority community.

Faruqi is upbeat about the prospects of Muslims in Nepal.

“Eid has been declared holiday, [the] Muslim Commission and [the] madrasa board have been formed,” says Faruqi, adding that his party, which is part of the current coalition govement, will continue to fight for greater rights for the Muslims of Nepal.

SHAFAQNA – Muslim students might just be facing the hardest challenge of their lives, Islamophobia in schools. A prime example is Bayan Zehlif, the Califoia student who was identified with the name “Isis Philips,” instead of her real name in the yearbook last week.

She received her senior high school yearbook only to find that she had been labelled as one of the most reprehensible groups in the world, ISIS.

“The school reached out to me and had the audacity to say that this was a typo. I beg to differ, let’s be real,” Zehlif said.

She explained at the Council on American Islamic Relations press conference that she had heard other anti-Muslim Idea made at the school in the past to make her think it was not a mistake.

One student had posted on Twitter that “all Muslims are terrorists.”  On the anniversary of 9/11, one of Zehlif’s teachers said that “the people who caused 9/11 shouldn’t be here today.”

However, Zehlif explains that she received support from fellow classmates, but still feels targeted, adding, “Seeing my schoolmates hate me hurts a lot.”

Muslim students bullied for their faith has become a norm in America. In 2015, after surveying over 600 Muslim students, Califoia’s CAIR chapter found that 55 percent had been bullied for being Muslim, which is twice the number of students who report being bullied on a national basis, and 20 percent had experienced discrimination by a school staff member.

“This disparity is a reflection of how Islamophobic rhetoric by certain media and public figures has become normalized in our society,” Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s Los Angeles Office, explained in an interview with The Daily Beast.

Muslim students facing Islamophobia in schools has become so severe that local Muslim organizations are holding a “combatting anti-Muslim bigotry” youth conference in Philadelphia on Saturday.

SHAFAQNA – Two thousand poor and deprived people from seven provinces of the country visited Mashhad and Holy Shrine of Imam Reza (A.S.), on the eve of birth anniversary of Hazrat Ali Akbar (A.S.) and in the second phase of a plan known as “Pilgrims of Imam Reza (A.S.)”.

Concurrent with the tenth day of holy month of Sha’aban, two thousand poor people from Yazd, Semnan, Kerman, Golestan, Mazandaran, Gilan, and South Khorasan provinces who had not visited Razavi Holy Shrine went on the pilgrimage of Imam Reza’s (A.S.) Shrine in a plan known as “Pilgrims of Imam Reza (A.S.)”, coordinating by Astan Quds Razavi.

In this ceremony, Hujjat al-Islam wa al-Muslimin Reza Ali Azizi talked about the great status of Razavi pilgrims and stated, “Visiting Imam Reza’s (A.S.) Holy Shrine is so great and significant that all the infallible Imams (A.S.) have highly recommended the Shi’ites to visit this Holy Shrine”.

He continued, “Also, in many traditions the reward of visiting Imam Reza’s (A.S.) shrine has been considered equal to the reward of one thousand Hajj pilgrimage and all these represent the high and great position of Imam Reza (A.S.)”.

In continuation of his speech, Hujjat al-Islam wa al-Muslimin Azizi referred to Imam Reza’s (A.S.) letter to Hazrat Abd al-Azim Hasani and said, “ In this letter, Imam Reza (A.S.) says, “ Give my best greetings to all the devotees and Shi’ites”, what is more valuable than Immaculate Imam’s (A.S.) greetings for us, indeed?”

Elsewhere in his remarks, he talked about the virtues of “Salavat” and said, “God’s blessings means reciting peace and mercy for the Prophet (S.A.W.) and his family and this recitation spread the spiritual status of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) and his descendants (A.S.) among people. When angels and faithful people recite Salavat they want Allah to send mercy and forgiveness and it is a reason for the fulfillment of prayers”.

At the end of his talk, he introduced Imam Reza’s (A.S.) Holy Shrine as a place for the fulfillment of prayers and wanted all the audience not to forget Shi’ites of Iraq and Syria and also Imam Mahdi’s (A.S.) reappearance in their prayers”.

It is worth mentioning that holding birth celebrations of Hazrat Ali Akbar (A.S.), various cultural and religious programs, elegy recitations, and giving tokens of Razavi banquet hall were some of the provisioned programs for these first-pilgrimage people.

© Robert Galbraith © Robert Galbraith / Reuters

SHAFAQNA- Email addresses and passwords for over 100 million LinkedIn members have been put up for sale on the Darknet by the same hacker who stole the data from the site in 2012.

SHAFAQNA – Plans by the govement announced in today’s Queen’s Speech to introduce a new law against non-violent extremism represent a direct attack on civil liberties and Britain’s Muslim communities.

The Counter-Extremism and Safeguarding Bill envisages introducing a new civil order regime such as ASBO’s to restrict so-called extremist activity. However it is reported that the bill is still far from ready to be introduced to Parliament because the govement is struggling to come up with a legally robust definition of extremism that will withstand the first legal challenge on freedom of speech grounds from those it seeks to ban.

Currently the govement defines extremism as “the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”. It is so wide that it is capable of ensnaring terrorist sympathisers but also those who oppose the govement or hold conservative views such as or disapproval of abortion or same-sex marriage.

The difficulty experienced by the govement in drawing up a watertight definition highlights the obvious dangers of criminalising what people think and say, particularly in relation to what it calls non-violent extremism. All kinds of illiberal views could be deemed extremist. To prosecute those holding them is clearly interfering with their right to freedom of belief and speech.

The bill also proposes introducing new powers of intervention to tackle the so-called radicalisation of children in “unregulated education settings”. This effectively means govement oversight of the Muslim religious education sector dominated by after-school madrasas. Quite how the madrasa sector is breeding extremists has never been shown but the govement seems intent on reining in their independence regardless.

The proposals confirm our view that that far from being driven by a desire to fight terrorism, anti-terrorism policy is part of a wider social engineering exercise designed to control and shape Islam and Muslims in Britain.

They will add to an ever-growing body of laws that while presented as colourblind are clearly directed at Britain’s Muslims with the aim of dragging them kicking and screaming to the altar of liberal and pro-govement views.

It appears that the govement has wilfully ignored the conces of human rights officials and activists in drafting the bill. Last April on a visit to the UK, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Assembly said that Britain’s anti-terrorism policies were counter-productive, undermining democracy and victimising the Muslim community. Maina Kiai criticised the ever-widening PREVENT strategy for its Orwellian impact on free speech and its adverse effect on Britain’s Muslim minority.

IHRC views current anti-terrorism policy as Islamophobic since it rests on the assumption that by dint of their faith all Muslims are potential terrorists who must be steered off that course by the state.

IHRC chair Massoud Shadjareh said: “The govement cannot use the pretext of protecting our British way of life by bringing in legislation that actually undermines British values such as freedom of belief and expression in an unprecedented manner. The civil penalties being proposed also undermine the rule of law. If someone is suspected of committing a crime they should be dealt with according to the law, not channelled down a track that bypasses due process.”

SHAFAQNA – The US Senate on Tuesday approved legislation that would allow victims of the 9/11 terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, defying vocal opposition from the White House.

“This bill is very near and dear to my heart as a New Yorker because it would allow the victims of 9/11 to pursue some small measure of justice,” New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said Tuesday. “[This is] another example of the [John] Coyn-Schumer collaboration, which works pretty well around here.”

The Republican-controlled upper chamber unanimously voted for the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which would allow any victim or surviving family members of a terrorist attack on the US soil to take legal action against the foreign nation-states behind the measure.

US President Barack Obama has already said he would veto the measure over security conces, but Schumer (pictured below) shrugged off the threat, saying a veto would easily be overwritten.

“I think we easily get the two-thirds override if the president should veto,” he said. “Today the Senate has spoken loudly and unanimously that the families of victims of terrorist attacks should be able to hold the perpetrators, even if it’s a country, a nation, accountable.”

White House press secretary Josh Eaest reacted to the approval, reiterating Obama’s position on the measure.

“Given the conces we have expressed, it’s difficult to imagine the president signing this legislation,” Eaest said.“This legislation would change longstanding inteational law regarding sovereign immunity, and the president of the United States continues to harbor serious conces.”

The bill has already gained support from the US House of Representatives, where it will head to next although Speaker Paul Ryan has voiced skepticism.

“I think we need to look at it,” Ryan told reporters last month. “I think we need to review it to make sure we are not making mistakes with our allies and we’re not catching people in this that shouldn’t be caught up in this.”

The bipartisan measure does not recognize the White House’s conce that it may undermine the US national Security.

“Look, if the Saudis did not participate in this terrorism, they have nothing to fear about going to court,” Schumer said. “If they did, they should be held accountable.”

The Saudis’ role in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which left nearly 3,000 people dead, has recently been highlighted in the backdrop of partisan rows in the US political system.

Riyadh also fears possible release of 28 pages of a congressional report, kept secret so far, that implicates their govement in the attacks.

SHAFAQNA – A mosque in Geelong, 75km south of Melboue, Victoria, was destroyed in a suspicious fire on Wednesday moing.

Police say the fire was reported at 2.15am after a nearby resident heard a loud bang. The resident went to investigate and saw the mosque alight.

“At this stage it appears the fire is suspicious and a crime scene has been established,” Sen Const Julie-Anne Newman said. “No one was injured.”

Newman said the arson chemist retued to the site with detectives later on Tuesday.

Two weeks ago a Greek Orthodox church in East Melboue, the oldest in Australia, was damaged in what was also believed to be a suspicious fire.

There have also been four church fires in the Geelong area in the past six months.

The Country Fire Authority said they did not know if the fires were connected.

The mosque, on Bostock Avenue, is housed in an old bluestone church, but has operated as a mosque for 23 years.

Shaykh Mohammad Ramzan, the iman of the Geelong mosque, said that he was in “disbelief and shock”. He and his family live in the adjacent house but escaped unharmed.

Ramzan said the mosque had not had any threats in the past.

“In the last 23 years, and I am here from the last four years, we have never ever had any threat, any letter, any phone call, which says anything bad about the mosque or the muslim community,” he said. “It’s a very peaceful and nice area and community.”

He said the Islamic Council of Geelong would rebuild the mosque, and would not be deterred even if the mosque had been deliberately targeted.

“Our community is very peaceful and we will remain peaceful and we will show patience and tolerance and we will take it as something not done by the community with any purpose,” he said. “It could be something done by someone who wants us to be divided … we will not play into the hand of anyone who has such a bad intention.”

A spokesman for the CFA said the fire had spread throughout the building by the time firefighters arrived, and could not be controlled. It took an hour to contain.

“There were a couple of conces with the structure potentially falling down so we didn’t put crews inside the building,” CFA officer Mark Sinkinson told the ABC. “The roof had completely fallen in anyway.”

Video of the fire, posted on Facebook, showed flames pouring out of the roof.

Inspector Graham Banks, from Geelong police, said that most of the churches targeted in suspected arson attacks had been of various Christian denominations, and police were not ruling out the possibility that the mosque had been targeted in a case of mistaken identity.

Banks said that some neighbours didn’t know the building was a mosque.

SHAFAQNA – In a move expected to increase the number of Muslim students in British universities, the UK govement has approved new charitable Shari’ah-complaint loans for Muslim students to increase diversity in campuses.

“We will introduce an alteative finance system to support the participation of students who, for religious reasons, might feel unable to take on interest-bearing loans,” the White Paper was quoted by The Telegraph on Tuesday, May 17.

“We have heard that some students will not access higher education in these circumstances, some will access higher education and use loans but will be troubled by their situation, and others will restrict their choice of course or institution to try to minimize the sums involved.

“To ensure participation and choice are open to all, we plan to legislate for the creation of an alteative model of student finance.”

This white paper sets out our plans for the next 5 years, building on and extending our reforms to achieve educational excellence everywhere.

The new “Takaful” model would allow students to make payments to a communal pot that would then benefit future students wanting to go to university.

The idea of the loans was suggested by Dr Samir Alamad a member of the Shari`ah Supervisory Committee.

“In the Islamic faith there is a strong prohibition against dealing with any sort of interest in any sort of financial transactions,” he said.

Under the usual arrangements, students repay their loans to the Govement when they start eaing £21,000 and pay an interest of 3 per cent or more depending on their eaings.

However, under the alteative finance arrangements, Muslim students would pay an “agency fee” of 3 per cent or more depending on eaings and the money they pay into the fund constitutes a “charitable contribution”.

Dr Alamad addressed conces that this fund might just be a change in names, saying: “This is different. People pay back to the fund so future students can benefit from it rather than paying back to the Treasury. It’s about giving back to the community.”

Britain is home to a sizable Muslim minority of nearly 2.7 million.

There are 400,000 Muslim students in British schools, according to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).

There are nearly 90,000 Muslim students studying in higher education institutions.

Islam forbids Muslims from receiving or paying interest on loans.

Introducing the Shari`ah compliant loans, would change minds of many Muslim students who decided earlier not to join universities due to the loan interest, according to the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS).

SHAFAQNA – Worshipping Allah side by side, the Muslim community in Northe Ireland has overcome ethnic and sectarian divisions, offering a role model to Muslims worldwide.

“When we started, in the main, Friday prayer time, we only had about 30 or 40 people,” Javaid, one of the founders of the Northe Ireland Muslim Family Association (NIMFA), said in a report that will be aired on Tuesday, May 17.

NIMFA, a group formed in 2002, now hosts about 400 worshipers in its modest building.

The place in south Belfast has become the hub for one of Northe Ireland’s fastest growing communities.

In Northe Ireland, people from all denominations of Islam worship side by side.

Every Friday, Javaid office undergoes a transformation ahead of weekly prayers.

Worshipers come from dozens of countries, from Nigeria to Pakistan, varying in ethnicities and sects.

“We have to put the chairs on the table and sheets on the floor so people can pray here as well,” he said.

There are about 1.5 billion Muslims and the vast majority are Sunni, who regard themselves as the orthodox branch of Islam.

Countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have some of the largest populations.

Shiites share many fundamental beliefs and practices but differ in parts of theology.

Places like Iran and Iraq have Shiites majorities.

In NIMFA, women play an active role to correct image of Islam.

Though working side by side with men, they separate to offer prayers at a separate room.

“We pray in rows quite close to one another…we bow down in prostration with our head on the ground,” Brenda, who converted from Catholicism to Islam in her early 20s and plays an active role in NIMFA, said.

She added that she believed it would be difficult and uncomfortable for women to do this in close proximity to men.

Reverting to Islam did not cause any problems with her family.

“I haven’t been excommunicated, I haven’t been disowned. We remain a close-knit family but with different values and beliefs but even in a Muslim family…that clash and conflict can happen,” she said.

Dr Wesam Elbaz, a professor of medicine in Cairo before moving to Northe Ireland for family reasons, and works now a consultant in microbiology at Belfast’s City Hospital, rejects claims that Islam is oppressive to women.

“You are trying to stereotype Muslim women… a lovely woman behind a veil, voiceless, powerless, dependent on other people.

“All that she knows in life is marriage and having children. This is not reality.”