Category: Where are the leaders

  • Where do you stand?

    http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/hatem-bazian/2015/08/17/books-and-reading-in-the-muslim-world-a-serious-crisis A friend sent me the article above underlining perhaps one of the most pernicious diseases of the Muslim world – a lack of concern for knowledge. Reading it I thought I would share some reflections. In my world of leadership training and development, in the institutions where I studied and teach, we have some…

  • Punishment ISIS style is NOT ISLAMIC

    Someone commented on the incident of the ISIS hanging up two boys by their wrists for a day or more because they didn’t fast in Ramadan. Below is the comment and my answer. Assalamualaykum. Overall, the ISIS seems a covert American operation to consolidate territory in Iraq and Syria. However, and to be fair, the…

  • Words – It’s only words – Or is it?

    Don’t underestimate the importance of words. In the famous words of Mark Twain: ‘The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.’ Words touch the heart, move the soul and inspire the spirit. Words move people to do things they considered impossible. Words are timeless and continue to have meaning…

  • Parenting can’t be outsourced

    The biggest challenge of parenting is to accept that we are facing a world that is very different from the one we grew up in. This is true irrespective of which country you live in with the additional complexity of a rapid destruction of walls between cultures. The truth is that your solutions don’t work…

  • ISIS – Isn’t Isn’t

    The faulty logic of the ISIS Preface: Religion is the last resort of the scoundrel…as the saying goes…refers to the tendency of some unscrupulous people to twist religion to justify their own nefarious activity. Genghis Khan famously gave a “sermon” in Bukhara after sacking the city saying that Allah had sent him as a punishment…

  • Who decides on gender equality?

    Gender inequality a product of culture, not religion: Study. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwuIXDvCA Let me begin with a disclaimer in the best modern tradition of writing that I accept that there’s gender discrimination and that women invariably get the short end of the stick. There is oppression of women, in Muslim societies as much as in others, all…

  • All hands on deck – it’s time to stand together

    There is a tendency in reporting and speaking about things like the deplorable so-called cartoons of Charile Hebdo and other similar things and say that they are offensive to a certain group of people. I consider this an insult to my humanity and my sensibilities as a civilised, global citizen. Thankfully there are others who…

  • Udai Pareek, my mentor and friend

    Udai Pareek – the most powerful thing I learnt from him was to give without asking for a return. And I have followed that principle all my life. Who else in this world writes a book full of tried and tested psychometric tests and gives it away? I first met Udai in 1983 when I…

  • Boycott or no boycott

    We the people find ourselves today in a bind. On the one hand the media delivers to the doorstep of our conscience, images and news, all highly disturbing, heart wrenching and begging for us to do something, anything to make a difference. On the other hand the ordinary person is the last link in the…

  • The Birth of a Narrative

    Mirza Yawar Baig Imam & Khateeb Mahmood Habib Masjid & Islamic Center, Hyderabad Looking at the headlines it appears that a story is being built – gradually one article at a time; linking one incident to another, using conjecture in the place of hard evidence – to create the new bogeyman – the Indian Muslim…