President Mohamed Nasheed has claimed that no other country in the global Muslim community “grants more freedom to Islamic scholars than in the Maldives.’’
Nasheed said there was no other country in the Islamic community aside than the Maldives where Islamic scholars can say whatever they want.
“No other country in the Islamic world allows scholars to preach the way they do in the Maldives,’’ Nasheed said. “Our goal was to give scholars the freedom to deliver their good religious advice, and to give the opportunity for them to provide council freely.’’
Nasheed noted that Islam had been a way of life in the Maldives for more than 1000 years.
“There is no other country that has continued Islamic Shariah, Islamic principles and Islamic culture for such a long time, other than the Maldives,’’ said Nasheed.
Meanwhile, local media have reported opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali as alleging that the current government was intending “to wipe out Islam in the Maldives.”
Thasmeen reportedly claimed that the government had demolished the only Arab medium school in the Maldives “to build 1000 flats.”
”After pledging to built flats, this government decides to demolish the only Arabic medium school in the Maldives,” said Thasmeen. ”this proves that the current government is trying to weaken the religion of Islam which has been here for a long time.”
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DRP up to Gayoom's old trick of politicising Islam. It appears Thasmeen is now dancing to the old dictator's tune. Shame he can't be his own man.
Damn politicians. We already have too much from these 'so called' scholars. Soon they ll be preaching hatred, and it will be legal.
Maldives have been practicing its own customized version of Islam. Lot of cultural influences from India/Pakistan communities(eg; Sufism) have flowed into and adjusted Maldivian way of life, introducing new stuff not in the authentic sharia. In an Islamic state there would be a Shura(scholars majlis) as a correctional body on all religious matters for the whole state. Iran maybe the closest state that runs such a system. But Iran is a Shia state. We are a Sunni state. If Maldives is to become an Islamic state we've a long way to go.
Exactly our point, Mr. President.
Perhaps it's time to put them on a leash. You're giving them way too much 'freedom' to indoctrinate and brainwash Dhivehin.
We want this country to remain Dhivehi Raajje, not Dhivehistan.
”After pledging to built flats, this government decides to demolish the only Arabic medium school in the Maldives,”
This is a GOOD thing! We don't need separatist education! We need every child to have access to the SAME education throughout the country.
The ONLY Arab medium school has no place in this country. It was a tool introduced by Gayyoom to politicise education and look at the result today.
If students want to learn Arabic, it should be taught as a language in ALL schools under the national curriculum!
when the democracy was introduced to Maldives it was these so called Islamic scholars who got the advantage and yet they claim that the government is anti-Islamic. A true example is Nazim's(the ex-Atheist) who was probably forced to become a Muslim or else death penalty. do we really have freedom of speech? or democracy?
Think about the history when muslims ruled world.Everyone was welcome those days.even atheists. read the history not only from one side and you ll know what i am talking about.
”After pledging to built flats, this government decides to demolish the only Arabic medium school in the Maldives,” said Thasmeen. ”this proves that the current government is trying to weaken the religion of Islam which has been here for a long time.”
Thasmeen must be hallucinating or have run out of ideas to talk about.
Islam survived in this country and continues to do so for over 800 years. In how many of those years, did we have an ARABIC medium school?
An Arabic medium school has got nothing to do with the religion of Islam. Thasmeen is deliberately misleading people into believing that Arabic == Islam!
Arabic is a language spoken by Christians, Jews as well as Muslims. Knowing the language doesn't automatically make you a Muslim or even a better Muslim.
BAD IDEA!
Mr.President
Then why do you ignore them as if they are going blah blah and you often say religion and politics cannot be mingled?
What happened to the Religious Unity Act? Who is sitting on it?
Problem is you also seem to have opened the gates of Maldives to some other religions as well! Do you want religious freedom in Maldives?
Politicians use their soundbytes to influence the popular conscious.
Media outlets structure their reporting in order to emphasize the message their paymasters wish to convey.
The populace fret and fume about issues publicized and brought to the fore for the benefit of specific interests.
All is well 😀
This is a double edged sword.
Good and Bad.
But why did Anni think this is a first? There is a reason why other countries have the restrictions. It probably backfired against them to begin with.
The openness about expressing ones belief. In Islam. In fundamentalism. In hatred mongering. In dividing community.
The blubbering idiotic beardees on the extreme end can never agree with each other. While these fight n are at each others throats, more liberal gradually trickle out of theism and become agnostics. Atheists.
The result: all sorts n beliefs come out. And nobody can stop this. It's bound to happen anyway.
A sign of democracy in infancy.
“Our goal was to give scholars the freedom to deliver their good religious advice, and to give the opportunity for them to provide council freely.’’
Mr President... define "good advice"...
is religious scholars promoting child brides considered "good advice"?
Let's ask Thasmeen a simple question:
Why did he spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in the UK studying instead of studying in an Arabic medium school or even in an Arabic country?
If he loves to spread Islam and the Arabic language so much, why doesn't he show us by example? How fluent is HIS Arabic?
The truth is that this two-faced politician is using Islam as a political weapon just as his old master Gayyoom did. Coward and hypocrite! You can't fool us anymore Mr Thasmeen.
Great, I should call myself an islamic scholar and start a marijuana plantation.
After all, it's quite halal - amirite?.
@ Ahmed Bin Addu Bin Suvadheeb
"Arabic is a language spoken by Christians, Jews as well as Muslims. Knowing the language doesn’t automatically make you a Muslim or even a better Muslim."
Mr.Suvadeeb. Arabic is also the language of the Holy Quran - the holy book of the Muslims.
Abun-Bappa Ummun-Mamma Akhun-Beybe which the limit of Arabic language in most non-Arabic schools is not how to master yourself in the language of the Holy Quran.
We need a separate faculty or institution that teaches Islam and Arabic to uphold Islamic values in Maldives just like there is a faculty for health sciences, faculty of hospitality and management,etc.
If you ask a Bengali in a barber shop to teach you hospitality and management, he will think you are asking him to shave all your hair including your pubes!
Likewise, if you think all the schools in Maldives are capable of upholding Islamic values by introducing Arabic as a subject - then Islam is bound to come out with a bald head one day!
ugh.i think we should vote the fundies and take this country back to ancient arabia. let em torture and murder people in the name of islam. perhaps, then we may see some change. something BIG should happen to kick off change in this country.
Mr.President, i refuse to bow down to the religious zealots that you use in your political game. i refuse give in to their bullying. my country has been a muslim nation for more than eight centuries. we rejected fundie islam. we knew it, we just did not accept it. as a maldivian i will stand by this choice our forefathers made. i will remain a muslim, but never become a wahhabi fanatic. i will tolerate wahhabis, but never give in to their demands. i will not worship bearded men besides my lord. bring on what you have, inquisition? torture?
you are all a shame to islam, going on with this barbarism in the name of islam. acting like maldivian state is better than the islamic state established by the prophet!tyranny of the majority is not democracy. forcing the views of a certain group of sheikhs upon the masses with law is not islamic. so the hypocrisy of maldivian state is neither islamic nor democratic.
all is halal for the rich, all is haraam for the poor. if it benefits those in power, anything is ok. and trying to control the masses with religion, using it to buy votes. ladies and gentlemen; the hypocrisy of dhivehistan! bring back our dhivehi rajje. the tolerant and peaceful nation.
Islamic scholars are the biggest threat to a stable progressive Maldives. They should all be rounded up and exiled on some uninhabited atoll. God save you from these mad mullahs. Let present day Pakistan be a lesson to you all.
Is Thasmeen buckling under pressure? First he lost his cool and yelled at Yameen as if he was Ali Waheed - thus loosing his most admired quality - the mild mannered statsman. Now he is trying to play religion to gather support. Does he think he is Maumoon? Thasmeen better be careful of his next move.
Given the sad state of the Islamic world today, maybe this is not something Nasheed should brag about.
Latest stunt of Anni to stay in power. He knows now without the help of Adhaalath annd Mullahs he cant stay further on to the president seat. But he doesn't know that by making so, Maldives will also end up like Pakistan, a hopeless failed state.
atheist and secular kaafirs are the biggest threat to a stable progressive Maldives. They should all be rounded up and exiled on some uninhabited atoll.
Let the West be a lesson to you all.
Lol@heck talking about bangladeshis.
The way I see things, those guys will always be better muslims than some of the the arrogant, self-centered liars that pass themselves around as 'muslims' in this country.
100% muslim country indeed.
heck wrote: "If you ask a Bengali in a barber shop to teach you hospitality and management, he will think you are asking him to shave all your hair including your pubes!"
Hey look everyone, heck gets his pubes shaved by a Bengali in a barber shop and the secret password to get the lad to do this is "teach me hospitality and management".
Where's the barber shop, heck?
LOL! kekek.
Thasneem has learnt well from his master Maumoon to lie and spin and speak of Islam in the same breath. I recall Maumoon saying in his last mega speech that if the DRP were to win local elections our Islamic education and culture would not be smashed. What Maumoon and Thasneem fails to see is that the people did not vote for Maumoon Abdul Gayoom to govern this country because it was the government of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom which smashed the foundations of our Islamic culture. What was promoted in his 30 years of rule was not the principles of Islam but the principles of greed, power, exploitation, extortion, theft, disempowerment, dishonour, disrespect, and dishonesty. The lieutinents of the mafia that ruled his government now the leaders of the DRP PA, DQP and the Republic Party continue to hold the country to ransom through the parliament where most now sit, the judiciary which they control and the lies they spin in their speeches and their media stations.
Poor Thasneem. Unable to forge an identity of his own as a leader, desperate to be the new DON but paralysed by the remote control of the DON who never left.
Its time Thasneem forged his own path, cut the threads of his puppet master Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and started practising the principles of Islam that he clearly has forgotten to live by. It is never too late to restore ones integrity.
Realizing that Gayoom is playing Islamic card, Thasmeen was compelled to make such a statement. Unfortunately, DRP has no issue with which it can confront MDP-govt. So, they are playing religious card - a dangerous thing to do. Lets hope Maldives do not end up like Pakistan, Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt (failed Islamic States).
we know that almost all the comments in the minivan news is from Nazim and his staff because not many people bother to read this 3rd grade online news paper. Comming to the subject, if kenereege Nasheed claims that he gives freedom to religious scholars than any other muslim leaders why did he write a personel letter to Shaheem former state minister and request not to talk about islam? freaks like Fareed who are in kenereege Nasheed's payrole are allowed to talk shop to the public.
Kanbaa, could you give us some evidence such letters and transactions exist?. Some information about this site's bandwidth and traffic would be nice, too.
And while you're at it, don't take your assumptions as facts. =]
the truth is religions around the globe today are infiltrated, mixed with many other stuff. look around you dont you ever feel like 'something is not right?' ......you will be amazed how you can make the public believe.
@heck
"Likewise, if you think all the schools in Maldives are capable of upholding Islamic values by introducing Arabic as a subject – then Islam is bound to come out with a bald head one day!"
I didn't expect you to have the intelligence to comprehend what I wrote. In Islams hay day, the greatest learning centre in the world was in Baghdad. Scholars gathered here from all over the world.
There was no "Arabic ONLY Islam" school there at the time! Islam never flourished stronger than it did at that time. What were all those scholars learning? I'll let you do the research and find out.
Imagine a day when Maldives will wake up and the streets will be full of black burugas and afghan type beardies or men in white long frock like the Arabs. Where the sculpture in from of Sultan Park will be the execution ground for homosexuals, Henveiru grounds will be the hadd and stoning ground, the front of the Justice building will be for cutting the hands of the thieves, the hospitals will abort babies of little girls getting pregnant (while mothers silently succumb), the little boys will be the toys of the elderly men (which doe not officially count as homosexuality, the jails filled with "athiests" being forced to submit to Islam or get tortured to death by the believers, girls staying home and slowly female professions fade off the country's fact.... That is what the scholars preach and want in this country. While Nasheed talks about freedom for Islamic "Scholars" does he know what happens to the freedom of the people.
Scholars' prayers are more powerful and more likely to be answered. That's why MDP came to power with thelp of Mullahs. It is only right they say whatever they think is fit. The trouble begins when their words inspire people to violence but convinced to be out of duty to God. At the end of the Dhivehin are not fools to believe in the new interpretation of Islam.
Let the scholars carry on!
Old Gayoom song! with same lyrics!
@ yaamyn! We want this country to remain DhivehiRaajje, not Dhivehiland.
@ Z-nut
Ms.Nutty professor, why did you include
Tunisia in the list?
Ben Ali who dropped his Tunisian throne while he was flushing the toilet one early morning, recently fled to Saudi Arabia, when his jet could not land in France where he was mentored, reminds me of Anni who seems hell bent to make Maldives a secular country at the behest of his British Conservative party mentors.
Tunisia is not a failed Islamic state my deary.
Ben Ali is an utterly failed Secularist.
Reminds me of Anni's immediate fate though it might not take as long as Tunisia's 23 years!
We have already had enough separation of church and state in just under two years!
@heck (the nut),
23-years of mis-rule with all sort of HR violations; press, internet censorship etc. All assets controlled by ONE FAMILY - not a failed state? At last he had to flee to your favourite place.
"dreary future' the days you speak of and fear are not far ahead. that will be the reality you will have to face.already you can count more women wearing the buruga than the one who dont.cheer up sourgrapes!
Minivan news, I think it would be very helpful if you embed videos to articles, like interviews and speeches.
Thank you.
@ Z-nut
"At last he had to flee to your favourite place."
You, frog in the well or what?
No deary! His plane was shooed off from France because this Secularist President lost power overnight and France did not need any toothless tiger in their territory.
It was only in Saudi Arabia, a place he so despised, that he found refuge after being shooed off from France, the country where he was mentored.
Same thing will happen to Anni, I think - the British Conservatives are going to shoo his plane from British airspace, once he loses power and he might only find Arabia as his landing place.
This is exactly what is happening in Maldives. Anni promised "Aneh Dhivehi Raajje".
Tunisians thought Ben Ali with his Secular views, would take them to "Aneh Tunisia", when Habib Bourgiba was ousted, almost in a similar fashion as Maumoon was ousted for his 30 years, by an Anni, heavily propped up by a strong coalition!
Where is the coalition today?
Where are the promises?
Where are the blossoms of 'nooraanee maa'?
Where is the 'gulzar'?
Where is the dollar?
Where are the flats?
They are nothing but 'nana-huvafen', I guess.
Developing Maldives MDP style is simple! Tomorrow 'Local Afeef Authority' can declare Addu as Heaven on Earth, with no roads, no sewerage system, no nothing. Just increase the market value of 'addu bondi' to two billion RF, and set it as the criteria for attaining 'Heaven on Earth' status!
@muslim boy
You seem to be another confused person from the seventh century my friend. Maybe you should also be exiled on an uninhabited atoll with the mad mullahs........with some scotch and some pretty boys to keep you company. This is the twenty first century by the way......As for knocking the west, you will be first in line if green cards and EU passports were handed out