Dawood Sharifa Khanum

D Sharifa Khanum Women's Rights Activist India   Sharifa Khanum has belonged to the women’s movement in India for nearly two decades and heads STEPS Women’s Development Organisation which she founded in 1987.  STEPS provides temporary shelter for battered women, combats violence against women by working with both the local community and the police and addresses women’s livelihood issues. Prompted by extremist violence against Muslims in India during the 1990s and discrimination against women in their homes and communities, she began organising women in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.  In 2004, her efforts led to the creation of the Tamil Nadu Muslim Women’s Jamaat Committee, the first network of Muslim women in the state.  This network functions as a community tribunal for hearing Muslim women’s problems in areas like personal law, livelihood issues and young girl’s education.  Since setting up, the women’s jamaat has announced plans to build a women only mosque.  Sharifa is spearheading the campaign to create a mosque for women in Pudukkottai District (which is about 400kms from Chennai), complete with a woman priest. She's got 3,000 women behind her--and a lot of Muslim religious patriarchs against her.  The idea of a women's mosque was born out of mounting frustrations with the rulings of the jamaat that consists of male elders who decide on family issues such as marriage, dowry, divorce, domestic violence, custody, and child abuse.  Women seeking assistance from the police on such matters would be often referred to the jamaat. However, the jamaat would only convene in the mosque--a place where women would not be permitted to enter. In India, Muslim women mostly pray in adjoining buildings.  Hence women would not be able to give their side of the story or hear judgments in cases that involved them. A nearby village has donated the land for the mosque and its first bricks have been laid – however Sharifa still needs another 3.5 million rupees to complete the mosque. The local men have put pressure on Sharifa to call the building a community centre instead of the mosque as they associate power with mosques and do not want women to be empowered.  However, she has not succumbed to the threats against her and continues to try and raise funds for the mosque. Sharifa has also bypassed local Shariah boards and the Ulemas and has had portions of the Quran that deal with women’s rights translated from Arabic to Tamil and distributed the material to women in several Tamil Nadu villages.

Ayesha Imam

Ayesha Mje- Tei Imam Theorist, Teacher and Activist Nigeria   Ayesha Imam is a women's human rights activist, as well as a researcher, writer, and trainer on gender issues. Dr. Imam obtained her degree in Sociology in London (1980), and her masters in the same subject at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria) (1987). She went on to obtain her phD and her in Social Anthropology at the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex at Brighton (UK). Most recently, Dr. Imam was the Executive Director of BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights, a Nigeria-based non-profit organization working for women’s human rights and legal rights under customary, religious, and secular law in Africa and internationally. BAOBAB's activities include research, publication, training, and awareness-raising campaigns on women’s human rights and state obligations in national and international law. She also works actively as part of the core group of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), an international solidarity network. . Dr. Imam is a co-founder and former national coordinator of the first feminist organization in Nigeria, Women in Nigeria (WIN). For a number of decades, including those of Nigeria?s military dictatorships, WIN has carried out research and publication on women's issues and has campaigned for women's rights and democracy issues. She also initiated and directed Africa's first Gender Institute, an annual program of CODESRIA that trains young academics in gender analysis. Dr. Imam serves or has served on the boards and steering committees of several international organizations,  Over the past 20 years, she has been a researcher and lecturer in universities and research institutions in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Senegal. She has researched, lectured, and published widely on women's human rights, women's rights and Muslim laws, gender analysis, gender in development, and democracy issues.

AMINAH ASSILMI: A TRULY INSPIRATIONAL MUSLIM WOMAN

Aminah is a renowned female revert of Islam. She travels around the United States to give lectures, her personal story has admired hundreds of individuals. She is also President of the International Union of Muslim Women, an organization that has many achievements under its belt.

“I am so very glad that I am a Muslim. Islam is my life. Islam is the beat of my heart. Islam is the blood that courses through my veins. Islam is my strength. Islam is my life so wonderful and beautiful. Without Islam I am nothing, and should Allah ever turn His magnificent face from me, I could not survive.” - Aminah

It all started with a computer glitch.

She was a Southern Baptist girl, a radical feminist, and a broadcast journalist. She was a girl with an unusual calibre, who excelled in school, received scholarships, ran her own business, and was competing with professionals and getting awards – all while she was going to college. Then one day a computer error happened that made her take up a mission as a devout Christian. Eventually, however, it resulted in something quite the opposite and changed her life completely around.

***

It was 1975 when for the first time computer was used to pre-register for a class in her college. She was working on her degree on Recreation. She pre-registered for a class and then went to Oklahoma City to take care of a business. Her return was delayed and she came back to college two weeks into the class. Making up the missed work was no problem for her, but she was surprised to find that the computer mistakenly registered her for a Theatre class, a class where students would be required to perform in front of others. She was a very reticent girl and she was horrified to think about performing in front of others. She could not drop the class for it was too late.

Failing the class was also not an option, for she was receiving a scholarship that was paying for her tuition and receiving an ‘F’ would have jeopardized it.

Advised by her husband, she went to her teacher to work out some other alternative to performing, such as preparing costumes, etc. Assured by the teacher that he would try to help her, she went to the next class and was shocked by what she saw. The class was full of Arabs and “camel jockeys”. That was enough for her. She came back home and decided not to go back to the class anymore. It was not possible for her to be in the middle of Arabs.

“There was no way I was going to sit in a room full of dirty heathens!”

Her husband was calm as usual. He pointed out to her that God has a reason for everything and that she should think about it more before quitting. Besides, there was the scholarship that was paying her tuition. She went behind locked doors for 2 days to think about it. When she came out, she decided to continue the class. She felt that God gave her a task to convert the Arabs into Christianity.

Thus she found herself with a mission to accomplish. Throughout the class, she would be discussing Christianity with her Arab classmates.

“I proceeded to explain to them how they would burn in the fires of hell for all eternity, if they did not accept Jesus as their personal saviour. They were very polite, but did not convert. Then, I explained how Jesus loved them and had died on the cross to save them from their sins. All they had to do was accept him into their hearts.”

They still did not convert, and so she decided to do something else:

“I decided to read their own book to show to them that Islam was a false religion and Mohammed was a false Prophet”.

At her request, one student gave her a copy of the Qur’an and another book on Islam. With these two books she started on her research, which she was to continue for the next one and a half years. She read the Qur’an fully and another fifteen books on Islam. Then she came back to the Qur’an and re-read it. During her research, she started taking notes that she found objectionable and which she would be able to use to prove that Islam was a false religion.

Unconsciously, however, she was changing from within which did not escape the attention of her husband.

“I was changing, just in little ways but enough to bother him. We used to go to the bar every Friday and Saturday, or to a party, and I no longer wanted to go. I was quieter and more distant.”

She stopped drinking and eating pork. Her husband suspected her of having an affair with another man, for “it was only for a man that a woman changes”. Ultimately, she was asked to leave, and she soon found herself living in a separate apartment.

“When I first started to study Islam, I did not expect to find anything that I needed or wanted in my personal life. Little did I know that Islam would change my life. No human could have ever convinced me that I would finally be at peace and overflowing with love and joy because of Islam.”

Throughout these times, she continued studying Islam and although she was changing subtly from within, she remained a devout Christian. Then one day, there was a knock on her door. It was a man in traditional Muslim robe, who appeared to her as a

“man in a long white night gown with a red and white chequered table cloth on his head”.

His name was Abdul-Aziz Al-Sheik and he was accompanied by three other men in similar dress. She was very offended by Muslim men coming to her in nightgowns and pyjamas. She was further shocked when Abdul-Aziz told her that he understood that she wanted to be a Muslim. She replied that she was a Christian and she did not have any plan to become a Muslim. However, she had some questions to ask if they had the time.

At her invitation, they came inside. She now brought up the questions and objections that she noted down while she was researching.

“I will never forget his name”,

she said of Abdul-Aziz who proved to be a very patient and soft-mannered person.

“He was very patient and discussed every question with me. He never made me feel silly or that a question was stupid.”

Abdul-Aziz listened to every question and objection and explained it within the proper context.

“He explained that Allah had told us to seek knowledge and questions were one of the ways to accomplish that. When he explained something, it was like watching a rose open – petal by petal, until it reached its full glory. When I told him that I did not agree with something and why, he always said I was correct up to a point. Then he would show me how to look deeper and from different directions to reach a fuller understanding.”

It would not be long before she would externally submit to what she had already been submitting to internally during the last one and a half years. Later in that same day, this Southern Baptist girl would declare in front of Abdul-Aziz and his companions:

“I bear witness that there is no god but God and Mohammed is His Messenger.”

It was May 21, 1977.

Conversion to Islam, or to any other religion for that matter, is not always a simple thing to do. Except for a few fortunate ones, a new Muslim usually faces consequences. The convert may face isolation from family and friends, if not pressure to go back to the family faith. Sometimes, a convert may even face severe economic hardship, as in the case of those who are asked to leave the house because of converting to Islam. Some converts are fortunate to continue to be well-respected by family and friends, but most of them face minor to severe hardship especially during the first few years after their conversion.

But the difficulty that Aminah Assilimi had to go through and the sacrifice that she had to make for the sake of her conviction and faith is almost unheard of. There are few who could rely so much on Allah as she did, standing firm and meeting the challenges, making sacrifices, and yet maintaining a positive posture and influencing people around her with the beauty of what she found and believed in.

She lost most of her friends, for she was “no fun anymore”. Her mother did not accept her becoming a Muslim and hoped that it was a temporary zeal and that she would soon grow out of it. Her “mental health expert” sister thought that she lost her mind. She attempted to put her in a mental health institution.

Her father was a calm and wise man. People would come to him for advice and he could comfort anyone in distress. But when he heard that his daughter became a Muslim, he loaded his double-barrel shotgun and started on his way to kill her.

“It is better that she be dead rather than suffering in the deepest of Hell”, he said.

She was now without friends and without family.

She soon started wearing hijab. The day she put it on, she was denied her job. She was now without family, friends, and job. But her greatest sacrifice was yet to come.

She and her husband both loved each other very much. But while she was studying Islam, her husband misunderstood her for her apparent changes. She became quieter and stopped going to the bar. Her changes were visible to him and he suspected her of having an affair with another man, for whom she must have been changing. She could not explain to him what was happening.

“There was no way to make him understand what was changing me because I did not know.”

Eventually he asked her to leave and she started living separately.

After she openly accepted Islam, it became worse. A divorce was now inevitable. This was a time when Islam was little known, much less understood for what it is. She had two little children whom she loved dearly and whose custody should have rightfully been given to her. But in a grave violation of justice, she was denied their custody just because she became a Muslim. Before giving the formal verdict, the judge offered her a harsh choice: either renounce Islam and get custody of the children, or keep Islam and leave the children. She was given 20 minutes to make a decision.

She loved her children very dearly. It is perhaps the worst nightmare that a mother can have: asked to willfully leave her child - not for one day, month, or year, but forever. On the other hand, how could she keep the Truth away from her children and live as a hypocrite?

“It was the most painful 20 minutes in my life”, she said in an interview.

Those of us who are mothers and fathers, especially of young children, little imagination is needed to feel the pain and torment that she must have passed every second in those 20 minutes. What added further to her pain was that according to doctors, she could never bear another child because of certain complications.

“I prayed like I had never done before … I knew that there was no safer place for my children to be than in the hands of Allah. If I denied Him, there would be no way in the future to show my children the wonders of being with Allah.”

She decided to retain Islam. Her two dear children – one little boy and one little girl – were taken away from her and given to her ex-husband.

For a mother, is there a sacrifice greater than this – a sacrifice that is done for no material reason but only for faith and conviction?

“I left the court knowing that life without my babies would be very difficult. My heart bled, even though I knew, inside, I had done the right thing”.

She found comfort in the following verse of the Qur’an:

{There is no god but He, the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there that can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they encompass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).} (Quran 2: 255)

Perhaps the air of Colorado was too thin for justice. Or perhaps there was a plan in Allah’s greater scheme of affairs. Aminah Assilimi later fought back and took her case to the media. Although she did not get custody of her children again, a change was made in the Colorado law that one cannot be denied child custody on the basis of his or her religion.

Indeed Allah’s love and mercy engulfed her so much that, as if, she has been granted the touchstone of Islam. Wherever she goes, people are touched by her beautiful words and Islamic manners and become Muslim.

By accepting Islam, she became a changed person, and a much better person. So much so that her family, relatives, and people around her started appreciating her mannerism and the faith that brought about such changes in her. Despite her family’s initial reaction, she remained in touch with them and addressed them with respect and humility, just as the Qur’an enjoins the Muslims to do. She would send cards to her parents on different occasions, but she would always write down a verse from the Qur’an or the Hadith without mentioning the source of such beautiful words of wisdom. It was not long before she started making a positive influence among her family members.

The first to become Muslim was her grandmother. She was over 100 years old. Soon after accepting Islam, she died.

“The day she pronounced Shahada, all her misdeeds had been erased, while her good deeds were preserved. She died so soon after accepting Islam that I knew her “book” was bound to be heavy on the good side. It fills me with such a joy!”

Next to become Muslim was her father, the one who wanted to kill her after she became Muslim. Thus he brought alive the story of 'Umar ibn Khattab. 'Umar was a companion of the Prophet who persecuted the early Muslims before he converted to Islam. When he heard one day that his sister became a Muslim, he went out with an open sword to kill her. But upon hearing some of the verses from the Qur’an that his sister was reciting, he recognized the truth and went straight to the Prophet and accepted Islam.

Two years after she (Assilmi) accepted Islam, her mother called and said that she appreciated her faith and hoped that she would keep it. Couple of years later, she called again and asked her about what one would need to do to become a Muslim. Assilmi replied that one had to believe that there is only One God and Muhammad was his Messenger.

“Any fool knows that. But what do you have to do?” she asked again.

She replied that if that is what she believed, then she was already a Muslim! At this, her mother said,

“Well … OK. But let’s not tell your father just yet”.

She was not aware that her husband (Assilmi’s step father) had the same conversation with her a few weeks earlier. Thus the two lived together as Muslims for years in secret without knowing that the other was also a Muslim. Her sister who wanted to put her in mental institution accepted Islam as well. She must have realized that becoming Muslim is indeed the most healthy and sound thing to do.

Her son, upon becoming adult, accepted Islam. When he turned 21, he called her and said that he wanted to become a Muslim.

Sixteen years after the divorce, her ex-husband also accepted Islam. He said that he had been watching her for sixteen years and wanted his daughter to have the same religion that she had. He came to her and apologized for what he had done. He was a very nice gentleman and Assilimi had forgiven him long ago.

Perhaps the greatest reward for her was yet to come. Assilmi later married another person, and despite the doctors’ verdict that she could never conceive another child, Allah blessed her with a beautiful boy. If Allah (swt) makes a gift to someone, who can prevent Him? It was truly a wonderful blessing from Allah (swt), and so she named him “Barakah”.

The sacrifice that Assilmi made for the sake of Allah (swt) was tremendous. And so Allah (swt) turned in mercy to her and rewarded her with enormous blessings. Her family discarded her after she accepted Islam, and now by Allah’s mercy, most of them are Muslim. She lost her friends because of Islam, and now she is being loved by so many.

“Friends who loved came out of nowhere”, she said.

Allah’s blessings came upon her so much that wherever she goes people are touched by the beauty of Islam and accept the Truth. Both Muslims and non-Muslims now come to her for advice and counselling.

She lost her job because of wearing hijab, and now she is the President of the International Union of Muslim Women. She delivers lectures nationwide and is on high demand. It was her organization that successfully lobbied for the “Eid Stamp” and had it approved by the United States Postal Service, but it took many years of work. She is now working on making the Eid Day as a national holiday.

She has tremendous trust in Allah’s love and mercy and she never loses faith in Him. She was once diagnosed with cancer some years ago. Doctors said that it was at an advanced stage and that she would live for another year. But her faith in Allah (swt) remained strong.

“We must all die. I was confident that the pain I was experiencing contained blessings.”

As a brilliant example of how much one can love Allah, she mentions about a friend of her named Kareem Al-Misawi who died of cancer when he was in his 20’s:

“Shortly before he died, he told me that Allah was truly Merciful. This man was in unbelievable anguish and was radiating with Allah’s love. He said: “Allah intends that I should enter heaven with a clean book.” His death experience gave me something to think about. He taught me of Allah’s love and mercy.”

All praise is due to Allah, she continues to live in good health. She now thinks that having cancer was the greatest blessing that she ever had.

UPDATE from the International Union of Muslim Women (March 6th 2010):

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’oon. Our beloved sister, Aminah Assilmi has passed away in an automobile accident.

We pray that Allah (SWT) will shower His mercy on this sister and grant her the highest level of Paradise – Jannat Ul-Firdous – and give her family patience in this difficult time. Aameen.

Sister Aminah Assilmi, Director of the International Union of Muslim Women, Author, Advocate of Women’s Rights, and Renowned Speaker died early this morning while returning from a speaking engagement in New York.

Sister Aminah and her son, were in single car accident just outside of Newport Tennessee where she had been living for just over a year. The car accident happened just after 3am and it appears that Aminah was killed instantly. Her son Mohammad was taken to a hospital in Knoxville.

Aminah had some health issues, but still maintained a rigorous schedule of speaking engagements to many communities around the country and around the world.  She was instrumental in getting the Eid stamp issued in 2001 and had been planning to start a campaign to have the stamp reissued with a new design in time for its 10 year anniversary. She was also trying to build a Center for Muslim Women’s Studies that would serve as a place where converts could learn about Islam and the basics including how to pray etc., as a retreat, and as a summer camp for Muslim children.

Aminah was 65 and has a daughter Amber, and sons, Whitney and Mohammad as well as several grandchildren.

Bilquis Edhi

It is true, as the saying goes: “There is a woman behind every man”. Bilquis Edhi is a woman of substance, for sure; and she has come a long way with Edhi for a cause that is simply great.

Bilquis Bano Edhi, wife of Abdul Sattar Edhi, is a humanitarian, a social worker and one of the most active philanthropists in Pakistan. She was born on August 14, 1947 in Karachi. She heads the Bilquis Edhi Foundation, holds the honor of being awarded the prestigious ‘Hilal-e-Imtiaz’, and with her husband received the ‘1986 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service’. She is also the recipient of the ‘Lenin Peace Prize’. Her charity runs many services in Pakistan including a hospital and emergency service in Karachi.

Bilquis Edhi – the young lass who was not very good at studies, joined the nurses training course at the Edhi Nurses Training Centre when she was in the 8th grade. Later Abdul Sattar Edhi proposed to her and they got married in April 1966. Since then, she has been working with the Edhi Foundation – A Foundation which was started by Abdul Sattar Edhi with the mission to provide aid to Pakistan's poor and down-trodden has become Pakistan's major relief organization under the leadership of the husband and wife - team of Abdul Sattar and Bilquis Edhi. Today, in addition to services provided in Pakistan, Edhi foundation is a major resource for assisting victims of disaster internationally.
Abdul Sattar Edhi’s possessions at the time of his marriage were a broken old car and a small dispensary. There was a maternity home on the first floor with 6-7 beds, a small room – 6’ X 6’ on the ground floor which served as an office and a similar room on the first floor. There wasn’t much else but even in those days when the newly wed couple had very limited resources, people used to leave their kids with them and Bilquis Edhi used to look after them.
Bilquis Edhi vividly remembers her first major experience at Edhi Foundation, when during the war; the bombings resulted in a number of brutally mutilated bodies which she had to wash for burial. At times only an arm, leg or head was recovered.  She, along with about 60-70 workers including voluntary workers, collected and then washed these bodies.

Her current responsibilities include looking after the ladies section, giving away children for adoption – mostly looking after women-specific and children related sections throughout Pakistan. Her two daughters also work closely with me. She regularly visits Edhi Homes all over Pakistan to monitor their activities and give suggestions and recommendations on how she feels the work should be done. She is also instrumental in making Edhi Homes ‘Centers of Excellence’ – in the true sense of the word.

With regard to child adoption, she makes sure the criteria are fulfilled to approve / disapprove of couples who want to adopt a child. Couples who want to adopt a child are interviewed by Bilquis Edhi. Her criteria for adoption are that even after 10-12 years of marriage the couple is still childless, prospective father’s salary should be reasonable, prospective father should not have alcohol or drug-related problems, prospective mother’s age should be younger than 50 and the couple should own a house. Her foundation doesn’t give children to couples who keep changing their house – keep moving from one place to another. Kids who are physically or mentally disabled are cared for by Edhi Foundation. They have a separate section for them where they clean them, feed them, play with them etc. The kids remain with them for the rest of their lives. Aside from the disabled children, the other children who don’t get adopted do not pose any problem, whatsoever. Edhi Foundation has over 4,000 applications in hand. They don’t have enough kids to give to people. So they are careful in selecting prospective parents. They have a ‘shariat-nama’ in place which they make the parents sign where it is explicitly mentioned that in case of separation between the parents, the Centre will reclaim the child or let the child stay with the mother.

Edhi Foundation keeps expanding by adding new welfare services every now and then. Bilquis Edhi sees Pakistan's future as bright, provided if people feel the pain and work for a better future. When she goes abroad with Edhi, they come back with lots of ideas. The couple dreams of the day when welfare facilities in Pakistan would be comparable to those we find abroad. She feels that this seems to be a distant dream. She said: “We don’t even have clean drinking water here. Load shedding is an ongoing problem. After the recent oil spill [in Karachi] when the oil tanker broke in half, people were saying that our country had gone back 20 years in time. As far as I am concerned in the last 55 years we have not moved forward. We are still where we were 55 years ago.”
Abdul Sattar Edhi and Bilquis Edhi, both think of things for the future. She told us that when Edhi comes up with an idea he writes it down. In 1976, the couple was involved in an accident which took place near a village with no airport or landing strip nearby. Around that time a building collapsed in Karachi - Bismillah Building. At that time Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was in power. Noticing Edhi’s absence from the scene of the disaster he inquired as to his whereabouts upon which he was told of the situation. Bhutto immediately dispatched a small airplane to pick them up. Edhi was admitted to the Civil Hospital in Karachi where shortly after gaining consciousness; he remarked that he would also like to buy a plane. Bilquis Edhi asked how he will be able to afford a plane as his current situation was such that if he put his hand in the pocket for some loose change, thread used to come out instead. However, Edhi never got disheartened and pulled along with conviction and dedication. By the Grace of Allah, they now have a plane, helicopters everything.

Bilquis Edhi is honored to be the life-partner of a person whose love for humanity is ‘larger than life’. She regards him as a good man - Albeit a little short tempered but good at heart. The couple has still not built their own house yet. Bilquis Edhi fondly remembered her first 4-5 years after marriage when she used to live on the roof. Later, after the birth of her four kids, she moved to her mother’s house. Her mother looked after the kids. On a daily basis she used to shuffle between her house and the Edhi Centre. After the kids grew up and got married, Bilquis Edhi’s mother passed away. The couple spends their days and nights at the Edhi Centre. In their 36-37 years of married life, there may have been at least 36 occasions when they never even came home at night. Even now when their children want to see him, they bring lunch from their home and come and eat with them.

They seldom take time out from their work but they have spent some good time together on the job. In the last 34-35 years there have been many occasions when they had to drop off patients and deceased people to far off villages. After dropping them off, on the way back they used to stop over in villages and rural areas where they have been treated with lassi, chicken in gravy among other delicacies and looked after extremely well by the people of those areas. They also sat on charpoys with their feet in the water – fresh cold water streams abound in these areas. They have had some good times together. On these trips they used to feel like they were extremely rich people with cars of their own. Others who lived in those areas didn’t have any cars so they used to request them to take them along whenever they went on such trips.

Faisal, Kubra, Zeenat and Almas – the Edhis have an educated progeny, bright young people. After Bilquis and Abdul Sattar, they will look after the Edhi Foundation and carry the torch forward.

Bilquis Edhi has spent her life for a noble cause and she continues to do so. She is lucky as a human-being and even luckier as a woman for she got a helping hand in the form of her husband. Abdul Sattar and Bilquis complement each other – in the very true sense of the word.

9-Year-Old Pakistani Girl Wins MCP

At just 9 years old, Arfa Karim Randhawa, of Faisalabad, Pakistan, is one of the youngest Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) in the world. She recently discussed with Micronews how she came to achieve this status and what it means to her and her family.

Q: When did you first become interested in computers?

Arfa: At the age of 5, when I was in kindergarten, I often used to pass by the computer labs and see students doing work on computers. I realized that calculation, which would take us a long time to do, can be done in less than a second with the help of computers. So that is how my interest in computers began. I started to explore computers on my own and first used one at the age of 6, when I was in first grade. Then I went to Applied Technologies (APTECH) for further studies.

Q: Why did you decide to pursue MCP certification?

Arfa: When I went to APTECH, my teachers, keeping in view my aim and age, decided that I should go for a certification of Microsoft. Because of my interest in software development, they decided that I should go for my MCP. It took me four months, and I did it during my summer vacation.

Q: What does it mean to you to receive this honor?

Arfa: It means a lot to me, because it helped me get recognition worldwide and to fulfill the dreams of my parents, especially my late grandfather, Ch. Abdul Karim Randhawa. I am thankful to Almighty Allah and my teachers, without whom I could not have achieved this honor. This is just the beginning.

Q: How have your family and friends reacted?

Arfa: The reaction of my family and friends was, naturally, very exciting. They are exhilarated and very much proud of me. My father provided me the opportunities, the required hardware, various software and the main thing, which is my confidence level.

Q: What is it like where you live?

Arfa: I live in Faisalabad, a major industrial city of Pakistan. Faisalabad is called “Manchester of Pakistan,” and it is famous for its cloth industry. It was designed by Sir James Lyall on the design of Union Jack, i.e. Faisalabad contains eight roads with a clock tower in the center and a circular road around it.

I belong to a purely agricultural family from a rural background. My late grandfather, Ch. Abdul Karim Randhawa was an unlettered scholar and had a great passion for higher education for his next generation. My father is serving with a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My mother is a landlady and looks after the land affairs in the absence of my father. I have two younger brothers, named Sarmad and Dawood, ages 7 and 3, respectively. Prior to me, no one in my family is in the field of IT, but I can feel that my brothers are following my footsteps very anxiously and enthusiastically. They are posing a constant challenge to my world record.

Q: Have you ever visited America? If not, do you plan to in the future?

Arfa: I have not visited America as of now. However, I would love to come to the United States, for two reasons. Firstly, I would like to pay a visit to Disneyland. Secondly, I would like to meet Bill Gates.

Q: What are your impressions of Microsoft?

Arfa: Microsoft has changed the way people think about computers. Microsoft has laid down the foundations for next-generation computing and is the founder in terms of providing user-friendly software—thereby increasing the number of novice users. I like the way Microsoft participates in other-than-mainstream activities, such as academic research, charities, scholarships and connecting the disconnected by providing technology support to underserved people. Microsoft develops a lot of software that allows people to realize their potential. This is exactly what my experience is with Microsoft. I’ve passion for software, and Microsoft provide me a true platform.

Q: Would you ever want to work at Microsoft?

Arfa: I would definitely like to work at Microsoft, since software development and exploring new technologies has always been my passion, and Microsoft is best when it comes to next-generation software technologies. Technology evangelism has always been my passion since I learned how to use computers. Not only I would like to work as the youngest technology evangelist at Microsoft, I would like to work on those cutting-edge technologies which would be explored by technology evangelists five years from now. Moreover, I would love to visit Microsoft headquarters at Redmond. I have dreamt a lot about the Redmond campus. I have visualized in my dreams so many times the working environment of Microsoft. I would like to see the labs where Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework have been developed.

Q: What other kinds of activities or hobbies do you enjoy?

Arfa: Computers, singing, reading, painting and gardening are my hobbies. I have won a singing competition at the national level. I keep my self updated by reading different books and encyclopedias.

Q: Do you have any advice for other young people?

Arfa: I have a message for the kids across the globe: If you want to do something big in your life, you must remember that shyness is only in the mind. If you think shy, you act shy. But if you think confident, you act confident. Therefore, never let shyness conquer your mind.

Reference: Arfakarim.com

Bano Qudsia

Bano Qudsia is a urdu writer and playwright. She was born in 1928 at Ferozpur India . She moved to Lahore Pakistan in 1947 after Partition. She graduated from Kinnaird College in Lahore. In 1951, she completed her M.A. degree in Urdu from the Government College Lahore. She is very famous and popular writer and novelist .She wrote numerous short stories, novelettes, television and radio plays, and stage plays.  She has written for television and stage in both the Urdu and Punjabi languages. She was married to famous writer  Ashfaq Ahmed. She was awarded the Sitara-e-Imtiaz in and the Hilal-e-Imtiaz by Government of Pakistan.

Reference: Woman.com

Benazir Bhutto

Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician who chaired the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a centre-left political party in Pakistan. Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988–1990 & 1993-1996). She was Pakistan's first and to date only female prime minister. Noted for her charismatic authority and political astuteness, Benazir Bhutto drove initiatives for Pakistan's economy and national security, and she implemented social capitalist policies for industrial development and growth. In addition, her political philosophy and economic policies emphasized deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labor markets, the denationalization of state-owned corporations, and the withdrawal of subsidies to others.

Reference: Benazir Bhutto .com

Who Is Aafia Siddiqui?

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was born on 2 March 1972 in Karachi, Pakistan. She is one of three siblings. Aafia’s father Mohammad Siddiqui was a UK-trained doctor and her mother, Ismet, is a homemaker. Aafia has three children: Ahmed (b. 1996), Maryam (b. 1998), and Suleman (b. 2002), the latter of whom remains missing to this day.

Aafia moved to Texas in 1990 to be near her brother, and after spending a year at the University of Houston, transferred to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Siddiqui's fellow students say she was a quiet, studious woman who was devout in her religious beliefs but far from the media characterisation of 'Lady Qaeda'. A fellow student, Hamza, recalled in an interview with the BBC, "I remember Aafia as being sweet, mildly irritating but harmless".

During her time at MIT, Aafia joined the campus Muslim Student Association (MSA) and was actively involved in efforts to portray the teachings of Islam to non-Muslims in order to better their understanding of her faith and invite them to Islam. Her emphasis in her life on bettering the conditions of Muslims even pervaded her academic achievements. During her sophomore year at MIT, she won a grant of $5,000 to study the effects of Islam on women living in Pakistan. In addition to her many academic achievements, Aafia earned the honourable status of committing the entire Qur’an to memory.

Following her graduation, Aafia married a medical student Mohammed Amjad Khan. She subsequently entered 

Brandeis University as a graduate student in cognitive neuroscience. Citing the difficulty of living as Muslims in the United States after 9/11 and following FBI harassment of her husband, Aafia and her husband returned to Pakistan. They stayed in Pakistan for a short time, and then returned to the United States. They remained there until 2002, and then moved back to Pakistan. Some problems developed in their marriage, and Aafia was eight months pregnant with their third child when she and Khan were separated. She and the children stayed at her mother’s house, while Khan lived elsewhere in Karachi. After giving birth to her son, Aafia stayed at her mother’s house for the rest of the year, returning to the US without her children around December 2002 to look for a job in the Baltimore area, where her sister had begun working at Sinai Hospital. On 1 March 2003, Pakistani authorities arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Aafia and her children disappeared just 27 days later.

DISAPPEARANCE

According to Aafia’s mother, Aafia left their home in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in a Metro-cab on 28 March, 2003 to catch a flight to Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport. In February 2010 Aafia’s eldest son returned to the scene and described how, when he, his mother and siblings came out of their home, fifteen to twenty people, including a ‘white lady’ and members of the ISI, were waiting in three to four vehicles on the next street and subsequently kidnapped them. Aafia was placed into one black car and the crying children into another. She described to her lawyer that she was immediately hooded and drugged. When she awoke she was tied to a gurney in a place that could not have been Karachi because the air was very dry.

Following her trial, Aafia’s lawyer Elaine Sharpe, described how Aafia’s baby, Suleman, was believed to have been killed during the arrest. Dr Siddiqui was later shown a picture of her baby, lying in a pool of blood. It is not known if Suleman, who would now be 7 years old, is alive.

Pakistani papers mentioned reports the following day that a woman had been taken into custody of terrorism charges and confirmation came from a Pakistan Interior Ministry spokesman. The media reported that Aafia Siddiqui had been 'picked up in Karachi by an intelligence agency' and 'shifted to an unknown place for questioning'. A year later, the press quoted a Pakistani government spokesman who said that she had been handed over to US authorities in 2003. 

Aafia Siddiqui had been missing for more than a year when the FBI put her photographs on its website.

Aafia’s mother described in a BBC interview in 2003, how a 'man wearing a motor-bike helmet' which he did not remove, arrived at the family residence and warned her that if she ever wanted to see her daughter and grandchildren again, she should keep quiet. Both the Pakistan government as well as US officials in Washington denied any knowledge of Aafia’s custody. Aafia's sister, Fowzia also says that she was told by the then Interior Minister Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat in 2004 that Aafia had been released and would return home soon

At almost precisely the same time that Aafia went missing, two other alleged Al Qaeda suspects disappeared from Karachi - Majid Khan and 'Ali 'Abd al-'Aziz 'Ali. They would be amongst hundreds arrested by the Pakistani intelligence services and handed over to the FBI and CIA as part of the War on Terror. Like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Khan and Ali would not reappear again until September 2006, following their transfer from CIA custody, where they were reportedly tortured including the use of waterboarding, to Guantanamo. 

SECRET DETENTION

Aafia claims that she was kidnapped by the Pakistani intelligence services with her children and transferred into US custody. She further alleges that she was detained in a series of secret prisons for five years during which time she was repeatedly abused, tortured and raped. Aafia’s claim is substantiated by former Bagram detainees who affirmed the presence of a female detainee of Pakistani origin at Bagram, with the prisoner ID “650”. The International Committee for the Red Cross also confirmed that a woman had been detained at Bagram. Immediately after his release from Guantanamo in 2009, ex-Bagram detainee, Binyam Mohamed declared that the woman he saw in Bagram, with the prison no. 650, was indeed Aafia Siddiqui.

The US has previously denied the presence of female detainees in Bagram and that Aafia was ever held there, bar for medical treatment (after they shot her) in July 2008.

Little is known about what happened to Aafia and her children in the five years in which they were missing. However, in October 2009, when Aafia was visited by a Pakistani parliamentary delegation she spoke a little about the five years in which she had been disappeared, saying “I have been through living hell”. She described being given an injection and when she came to, she was in a cell. She said she was being brainwashed by men who spoke perfect English, who may have been Afghans. She did not think they were Pakistanis. She described being forced to make false confessions and sign statements. She alleged that she had been tortured although she provided no details. She was also told by her captors that if she did not co-operate, her children would suffer. During her trial, Aafia alluded to being tortured in secret prisons, to being raped, her children being tortured, and being threatened to be “sent back to the bad guys” – men she described as sounding like Americans but could not be “real Americans” but “pretend Americans” due to the treatment they had subjected her to. After her trial it emerged that the government of Pakistan had put a gag order on Aafia’s family in exchange for releasing her eldest son Ahmed.

Aafia's lawyers, Elaine Sharpe and Elizabeth Fink, would later corroborate this by stating publicly that she had "been through years of detention, whose interrogators were American, who endured treatment fairly characterised as horrendous" and that she had been "tortured".

RE-ARREST IN AFGHANISTAN

On 7 July 2008, a press conference led by British journalist Yvonne Ridley, in Pakistan resulted in mass international coverage of Aafia’s case as her disappearance was questioned by the media and political figures in Pakistan. Within weeks, the US administration reported that she was arrested by Afghani forces along with her 13 year old son, outside the governor of Ghazni’s compound, allegedly with manuals on explosives and ‘dangerous substances in sealed jars’ on her person. Her lawyers claim that the evidence was planted on her. Aafia would later testify during her trial that the bag in which the evidence was found was not her own and was given to her, being unaware of its contents. She also claimed that the handwritten notes were forcibly copied from a magazine under threat of torture of her children. She recalledthe presence of a boy at the Ghazni police station whom she believed could have been her son, but could not know with certainty since they had been separate for several years.

On 3 August 2008 an agent from the FBI visited the home of her brother in Houston, Texas and confirmed that she was being detained in Afghanistan. On Monday 4 August 2008, federal prosecutors in the US confirmed that Aafia Siddiqui had been extradited to the US from Afghanistan where they alleged she had been detained since mid-July 2008. They further allege that whilst in custody she fired at US officers (none being injured) and was herself shot twice in the process. Aafia confirmed during her trial that she was hiding behind a curtain in the prison, as the US claim, with the intent of escaping as she feared being returned to a secret prison, but categorically denied picking up the gun or attempting to shoot anyone. Aafia was charged in the US with assaulting and attempted murder of US personnel in Afghanistan.

RELEASE OF AHMED SIDDIQUI

In late August 2008, Michael G Garcia, the US attorney general of the southern region confirmed in a letter to Dr Fowzia Siddiqui that Aafia’s son, Ahmed had been in the custody of the FBI since 2003 and was he was currently in the custody of the Karzai government. Earlier the US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W Patterson had earlier claimed that Washington has no information regarding the children. 

According to an Afghan Interior Ministry official quoted in the Washington Post, Ahmed Siddiqui was briefly held by the Interior Ministry after his arrest in July 2008 and was thereafter transferred to an Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), notorious for its brutal treatment of detainees, despite the fact he was too young to be treated as a criminal suspect under both Afghan and international law.  Under Afghanistan's Juvenile Code, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 13 and according to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child a minimum age of criminal responsibility below the age of 12 is "not internationally acceptable." 

Ahmed was finally released to the custody of Aafia’s family in Pakistan in September 2009.

He later gave a statement to police in Lahore, Pakistan, that he had been held in a juvenile prison in Afghanistan for years. On being reunited with his father for the first time, he ran away screaming in horror, claiming that his father was amongst those who used to beat him in Afghanistan.

THE TRIAL

The trial of Aafia Siddiqui began Tuesday 19 January 2010, in a Manhattan federal courtroom. Prior to the jury entering the courtroom, Aafia turned to onlookers saying; "This isn't a fair court, (...) Why do I have to be here? (...) There are many different versions of how this happened," referring to the alleged shooting.

Three government witnesses testified on the opening day of the trial; Army Capt. Robert Snyder, John Threadcraft, a former army officer and John Jefferson, an FBI agent. Both were stationed in Afghanistan at the time of the alleged assault and murder attempt.

During the trial, while Snyder testified that Aafia had been arrested with a handwritten note outlining plans to attack the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge and Wall Street, Aafia disrupted the proceedings with a loud outburst aimed at Snyder, after, which she proclaimed her innocence stating; "Since I'll never get a chance to speak, if you were in a secret prison.. where children were tortured... This is no list of targets against New York. I was never planning to bomb it. You're lying."

In the morning before the closing remarks, the last government witness, FBI Special Agent, Angela Sercer testified. Sercer monitored Aafia for 12 hours a day over a two week period while she was at a hospital in Bagram. She tried to rebut Aafia Siddiqui’s testimony, by saying that Aafia told her she was in “hiding” for the last five years and further that she “married” someone to change her name.

However under cross examination, Sercer admitted that while at the hospital Aafia expressed fear of “being tortured”. Sercer also admitted that Aafia expressed concern about the “welfare of the boy” and asked about him “every day”. Moreover, that Aafia only agreed to talk to her upon promises that the boy would be safe. According to the testimony Aafia said that the Afghans had “beaten her”; that her “husband had beaten her and her children”; and that she was “afraid of coming into physical harm”.

When Sercer was further questioned about what Aafia said about her children during that two week period, she admitted that Aafia expressed concern about the “safety and welfare of her children”, but felt that the “kids had been killed or tortured in a secret prison”. “She said that they were dead, didn’t she” asked Defence attorney, Elaine Sharpe; reluctantly Sercer answered, “Yes.”

The trial took an unusual turn with an FBI official asserting that the finger prints taken from the rifle, which was purportedly used by Aafia to shoot at the U.S. interrogators, did not match hers. Another event complicated the case further, when the testimony of witness Masood Haider Gul appeared different from the one given by U.S. Captain Schnieder earlier. The defence denied all charges, stating that "the soldiers had given different versions of where she was when the M-4 was allegedly fired and how many shots were fired."

The trial lasted for 2 weeks and the jury deliberated for 2 days before reaching a verdict. On February 3, 2010, she was convicted and found guilty on all counts. , despite the following discrepancies:

· The court proceedings were flawed, and limited to the incident in Ghazni, which itself lacked concrete evidence.

· It is still unexplained how a frail, 110 pound woman, confronted with three US army officers, two interpreters and two FBI agents managed to assault three of them, snatch a rifle from one of them, open fire at close range, hit no one, but she herself was wounded.

· There were no fingerprints on the gun.

· There was no gunshot residue from the gun.

· There were no bullet holes in the walls from that particular gun.

· There were no bullets cases or shells in the area from the specified gun.

· The testimony of the government’s six eyewitnesses contradicted each other.

· The statements Aafia made to FBI agent Angela Sercer were made whilst she was under 24 hour surveillance by FBI agents in the hospital at Bagram, with her arms and legs tied to a bed for weeks, several types of meidcation, sleep-deprived and at the mercy of the agent for food, water and in order to relieve herself. Sercer did not identify herself to Aafia as a FBI agent. The use of these statements in court were objected to by the defence on the basis of ‘Miranda laws’ which mandate that a detainee must be informed of their rights, have access to an attorney, or in the case of international law, consular staff and law enforcement officials must identify themselves. Despite this the judge denied the motion and allowed this to form part of the questioning.

· Aafia’s disappearance, torture and missing children were not at all addressed during the court case.

POST CONVICTION

Following her conviction, Aafia remained at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in New York where she has spent the best part of her detention in the US. Throughout that time, she has been subject to humilitating and degrading strip and cavity searches, prompting her to refuse legal visits on many occasions. Since the beginning of March Aafia has been refused all contact with her family and has not been permitted any letters, phonecalls, visits or reading material under the pretext of “the security of the nation.”

In April 2010, a 12 year old girl was left outside the resident of Fowzia Siddiqui in Karachi by unidentified men claiming she was the missing daughter of Aafia Siddiqui. Although initially it was thought that she was not Aafia's daughter, following DNA tests conducted by the Pakistani government, the Interior Minister Rehman Malik confirmed that the tests proved that the child was indeed Aafia's daughter, Maryam, and that her DNA matched that of Ahmed Siddiqui (Aafia's eldest son) and their father, Amjad Khan. Dr Fowzia intended to carry out their own independent investigation to confirm the girl's identity. In a press conference Senate Committee for Interior Chairman, Senator Talha Mehmood reported that Maryam Siddiqui was recovered from Bagram airbase in the custody of an American - in the Urdu-language press, an American soldier - called "John". He also said that she had been kept for seven years in a 'cold, dark room' in Bagram airbase.

After several postponements, Aafia was finally sentenced to 86 years in prison, on 5 counts, on September 23rd 2010, making her eligible for release in 2094. She would be 122 years old at the time of her release, if she remains alive at that time. 

The whereabouts and welfare of Aafia’s youngest son, Suleman remains a mystery.