I found this article interesting..in an od way it seemed to mirror some of the arguments going on in this forum recently..
Quake God’s punishment for ‘immoral activities’: Farhat Hashmi
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Farhat Hashmi, the controversial Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist, says those who died in the October 8 Pakistan earthquake were punished by God for their “immoral activities”.
In a weekend interview with a correspondent of the Toronto-based Globe and Mail newspaper, she said, “The people in the area where the earthquake hit were involved in immoral activities and God has said that he will punish those who do not follow his path.”
Hashmi recently moved to Canada with her family and has since set up teaching classes. She told her class of around 150 mostly young Pakistani women, all in white headscarves and black abayas, “We must understand why such calamities take place. The people in the are where the earthquake hit were involved in immoral activities, and God has said that he will punish those who do not follow his path.”
**Hashmi was immediately criticised by Tarek Fatah, communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, who said, “What sort of a sick mind would suggest that the over 20,000 Pakistani and Kashmiri children who were buried alive in their schools were ‘involved in immoral activities’?” **
He said Hashmi has now brought her wahabbi teachings to Canada where she has opened a private school for girls. She encourages segregation and defends polygamy. One of her students, a teenager, told the Globe and Mail: “It is better for a man to do things legally by taking a second wife, rather than having an affair.”
Fatah said, “Many Muslim Canadians are upset that this woman from Pakistan has been allowed to come into Canada to spread her message.” One such critic, Kausar Khan, a businesswoman, told the newspaper, “…why is this woman being allowed to bring her extremist views to our country? She poses a danger to us and our Canadian way of life.”
However, Hashmi is not without her admirers, one being Sheema Khan, president of the Canadian chapter of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) who told the same newspaper last year, “Ms Hashmi’s soothing style articulates a message of personal reform. She reminds listeners of God’s mercy and forgiveness - in stark contrast to the dire warnings of hellfire favoured by some mullahs.”
Fatah asks how the self-styled evangelist’s view on the earthquake victims be considered as “soothing” or reflecting “God’s mercy and forgiveness?”
Hashmi offers a 20-month course she calls Taleem-ul-Quran, claiming that she has come from Pakistan to enlighten young Muslim women about their religion. She counsels Muslim women to cover up, stay at home and accept their essentially subservient role when contrasted with men. She set up Al-Huda International in Pakistan in 1994 after taking a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Glasgow. He clientele in Pakistan – as in Canada – consists of middle and upper-middle-class women. She claims that 10,000 students have “graduated” from her course. She also travels to London and Dubai. She told the Canadian newspaper that she had moved to Toronto with her husband and family in response to demand for young women in the city to gain a deeper understanding of Islam. She charges a nominal fee of Canadian $60 a month. Five-hour classes take place four times a week.
She told the Globe and Mail correspondent, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinnoy, “My Canadian friends invited me here because they feel that there is an need to educate young Muslim girls in this society. They come to me for answers. I teach them the Quran, and they leave with a sense of peace.” Her impressionable young students appear to accept her highly conservative and textual interpretation of Islamic texts.
However, Kausar Khan feels alarmed at the possibility that the next generation of South Asian girls are embarking Dr Hashmi’s teachings. “We live in a secular society, where there is separation of religion and state. Then why is this woman being allowed to bring her extremist views to our country? She poses a danger to us and our Canadian way of life.”
This logic is illogic…