ISLAMIC AWAKENING OF MUSLIM
INELLIGENTSIA
Addition of A New Chapter
in the History of Dawah Islamiah in Japan
MUSLIM STUDENT ASSOCIATION, JAPAN HELD ITS ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN OSAKA WITH 280 FOREIGN
AND 130 JAPANESE DELEGATES
TWO
GUEST PROFESSORS FROM WORLD ASSEMBLY OF MUSLIM YOUTH WERE INVITED FROM SAUDI ARABIA AND ONE FROM AL-AZHAR UNIVERSITY , EGYPT
FOR ISLAMIC LECTURES
By
Hussain Khan, M.A. ( Tokyo
) - muslim@muslimrevival.com
Osaka (August 19, 2008):
Islamic awakening in Muslim intelligentsia became clear when Doctorate and
Post-doctorate students in Japan from several Muslim countries like, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Algeria, Tunisia, Palestine and others gathered here for 3 days to attend the
annual conference of Muslim Students Association, Japan (MSAJ). It was held
here during the Obon holidays in Japan on August 15, 16 and 17th
August in Chisun Shin-Osaka Hotel. It was attended by 280 foreign Muslim
delegates from all over Japan
and 130 local Japanese from near about Osaka
areas.
Two Professors, Esam Hamed
Ai-Abdul Hafidh and Mohammad Al-Bbatairy, well-versed in Islamic subjects were
invited from World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), Saudi Arabia and one, Dr,
Samir El-Shaikh, Professor of Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University,
Cairo. They gave 5 lectures in Arabic and English during the 3-day
conference on various Islamic topics, as requested by MSAJ, and answered questions
from the attendants satisfactorily.
Two separate sessions were held
for Non-Muslim Japanese. These were attended by 130 Japanese people. The
morning session of about one and a half hour was devoted to lectures in
Japanese language by a non-Muslim lady Prof. Aisa Kiyosue and by the Islamic
Japanese scholar, Mr. Sulaiman Hamanaka. The 2nd session was devoted
to Posters, showing important features of Islamic history and Islamic
teachings.
There is a very strong Muslim
Students Association in USA
as well since long. Students of lower and higher levels are both included in
it. But MSAJ does not have any lower level university students. This the
difference between the two. Japanese government has changed its
policy. During the Fifties and Sixties, it used to offer scholarships to
under-graduate students. But during the last few decades, it stopped
scholarships for the under-graduates. Now all scholarships are given to
doctorate and post-doctorate students only and their number has increased tremendously
during the last few years. Now hundreds of such students are attending almost
all universities all over Japan
, specializing in several technical subjects. Every student is given around
$1500 with cheap housing facility. This amount is barely sufficient for
them to stay in Japan
with their families and children.
It has suddenly increased the
percentage of highly-educated Muslim residents in Japan . It is a new phenomenon for
Islam in Japan and is an
addition of a new chapter to the history of Dawah Islamiah in Japan . MSAJ
has collected huge sums, mostly from among themselves, and have built Mosques
around different Universities all over Japan , costing from a minimum of
$250, 000 to $450,000 each. So far they have completed building 8 beautiful
mosques in different parts of Japan
. It is continuing to build or financially support building of one or two
additional mosques each year in some part of Japan where there is no mosque in
the city or near the university.
So far mostly Pakistani and a few
Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan or Burmese Muslims, settled as businessmen of used
cars or some other professions have built 40 to 50 mosques in various areas of Japan during
the last two decades. After the emergence of MSAJ, this trend is now
changing. Now MSAJ has started taking lead in such matters.
After the dissolution of Ottoman empire and the end of the two Great World Wars,
Muslim countries started getting political independence from Western
imperialism. But during the period under the colonial tutelage, they were
impregnated with the poison of anti-Islam Western education and its glittering
civilization. Most of the Muslim intelligentsia had lost faith in divine
guidance for the social, economic and political ills of the modern civilization
and confined their faith into the boundaries of mosques and madressahs only.
A lot of them became secular and lost interest in 5-times prayers or even
in weekly Jumah prayers. Ataturk was the first culprit who started
secularization of a Muslim country, Turkey , and tried to changed its
Islamic character to imitate West and its degenerated civilization. Political
leaders in most of the newly independent Muslim countries are still not much
interested in implementing Islamic Shariah in their own countries.
The phenomenon, like the
emergence of MSAJ, gives hope in this regard. Highly educated class of Muslim
countries, as represented by MSAJ, shows that the future leaders in Muslim
countries will be more serious for Islam than their previous generation, which
was brought up under Western colonial rule over their countries. The
generation of Muslim youth and the intelligentsia that has been brought up in
independent Muslims societies is becoming more and more Islamic than their
previous generation under Western slavery. The anti-Muslim attitude of
the West with regard to Palestine , Iraq , Afghanistan
, Kashmir , Chechnya and etc. has also served
as an eye-opener for the Muslim youth and the intelligentsia that their
deliverance lies in this world and in the hereafter in their seriousness in
following the teachings of Allah and His Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon
Him). This Islamic awakening among the Western educated Muslim
intelligentsia is a sign of hope for the Muslim revival and renaissance in 21st
century. --
www.montrealmuslimnews.net
