Great People Intellectuals,Writers, Poets,Saints, Scholars: May 2010

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Dawood Ibrahim ( The Real Don? )

The Real Don

Dawood Ibrahim , born. December 26, 1956, also known as Dawood Ebrahim, and Sheikh Dawood Hassan, birth name Sheikh Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, is the head of the organized crime syndicate D-Company in Mumbai. He is currently on the wanted list of Interpol for organised crime and counterfeiting.He was No. 4 on the Forbes' World's Top 10 most dreaded criminals list of 2008. He is ranked at no. 50 in Forbes list of 'The World's Most Powerful People'.
Dawood Ibrahim is accused of heading a vast and sprawling illegal empire. After the 1993 Bombay bombings, which Ibrahim allegedly organized and financed, he became India's most wanted man.According to the United States, Ibrahim maintains close links with al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden. As a consequence, the United States declared Dawood Ibrahim a "global terrorist" in 2003 and pursued the matter before the United Nations in an attempt to freeze his assets around the world and crack down on his operations. The Bush administration has since imposed several sanctions on Ibrahim and his associates.Andian and Russian intelligence agencies have pointed out Ibrahim's possible involvement in several other terror attacks, including the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan denies any knowledge of his existence, Indian intelligence agencies, such as Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), believe that one of his addresses includes White House, Near Saudi Mosque, Clifton, Karachi,Pakistan as per Interpol, and is provided protection, by Pakistani intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).[9] The issue of extradition of Dawood Ibrahim is one of the major hurdles in the frosty relations between India and Pakistan.

Dawood Ibrahim, the son of a police constable Ibrahim Kaskar, was born in Mumkaa village in Ratnagiri in the Indian state of Maharashtra on December 26, 1955. He is of Konkani descent. He is said to have begun his career in Mumbai working for the Karim Lala gang exploiting the rapid expansion in the Bombay (now Mumbai) textiles industry to his advantage.He soon moved his residence to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where he has business interests alongside India.
Dawood Ibrahim is believed to control much of the 'hawala' system, which is the very commonly used unofficial system for transferring money and remittances outside the view of official agencies. Much of the organisation's operations are in India.

Ibrahim is widely believed to have masterminded the 1993 Bombay Bombings, a series of terrorist attacks carried out in the city on March 12 of the year. In 2003, the Indian and United States governments declared Ibrahim a "Global Terrorist". The then Deputy Prime Minister, L.K.Advani described it as a major development and that India stands "vindicated". Ibrahim is currently on India's "Most wanted List".
The United States Department of Treasury has also designated Ibrahim as a terrorist as part of its international sanctions program - effectively forbidding U.S. financial entities from working with him and seizing assets believed to be under his control. The Department of Treasury keeps a fact sheet on Ibrahim which contains reports of his syndicate having smuggling routes from South Asia, the Middle-East and Africa shared with and used by terrorist organisation al-Qaeda. The fact sheet also said that Ibrahim's syndicate is involved in largescale shipment of narcotics in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. He is also believed to have contacts with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden. In the late 1990s, Ibrahim traveled in Afghanistan under the Taliban's protection. The syndicate has consistently aimed to destabilize the Indian government through riots, terrorism and civil disobedience.
Washington added that they will request the United Nations to list Ibrahim "in pursuance of relevant Security Council resolutions". The UN listing will require that all UN member states freeze Ibrahim's assets and impose a travel ban. Juan Zarate, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said that they are committed to identifying and attacking financial ties between terrorism and the underworld.Ibrahim is also suspected to have connections with terrorist organisations, and in 2002 was linked to the financing of increasing attacks in Gujarat by Lashkar-e-Toiba.New Delhi handed over to Islamabad a list of 38 most wanted criminals, including Ibrahim.
In a major blow to Ibrahim, ten members of his gang were arrested by Mumbai Crime Branch on November 21, 2006. They were extradited from the United Arab Emirates, from where they had been deported.
Sources reported in India Today indicate that Dawood Ibrahim provided the logistics for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.
[edit]United States Deportation Resistance
In January 2002, a month after the Parliament attack, Indian officials visited the US, where they had meetings with Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. A list of the Top 20 most-wanted terrorists in Pakistan was handed to the US. Ibrahim was wanted in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. Following the meetings, "He (Powell) told his Indian interlocutors that Pakistan would hand over Dawood Ibrahim to India 'with some strings attached' and also that Musharraf needed 15 to 20 days more for doing so," However, Advani says he "started facing hurdles" soon and recollecting it now "is not a very happy experience."
No Pakistani action was made the following months...
" ...there was only fibbing and foot-dragging. In my interactions with visiting Americans, I began to see, strangely, a certain lack of enthusiasm. 'We do not have the clout to compel Pakistan to act on this issue,' they started saying...I suspected, not without basis, that somebody in the bureaucratic system was trying, in Indian's dialogue with Americans, to de-emphasise or derail the issue of getting Ibrahim and other Indian terrorists back from Pakistan...[India] was ‘denied a major success in its war against Pakistan-supported terrorism by way of bureaucratic non-cooperation ‘that I have not been able to fully fathom'.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, a gummen arrested for participation in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 173 (164 civilians and security personnel and 9 terrorists), has confessed to authorities according to reports that Ibrahim's organization provided arms and explosives to the Lashkar-e-Toiba group that were used to carry out the attacks.

Dawood Ibrahim's daughter Mahrukh Ibrahim married Javed Miandad the son of a former Pakistan National Cricket Team captain, Javed Miandad. Miandad told the press that his son and Ibrahim's daughter met while studying together in the UK.

The past few years have seen a dramatic decline in Dawood's fortunes from the heady heights of the life depicted in "Portrait of a Don" - the ground breaking exposé by Ghulam Hasnain in 2001.
Firstly came the death of Sharad Shetty, Dawood's financier and long term confidant, an assassination carried out by Dawood's long time rival Chotta Rajan. News media outlets reported the murder as a sign of a dramatic shift of power between the crime lords.This was the seminal event in a series of blows to his criminal empire from which Ibrahim has never fully recovered. The loss of Shetty was followed by the declaration by the United States Treasury Department declaring Ibrahim a global terrorist because of his links with Osama bin Laden..Ibrahim then lost one of his closest aides, Shoib Khan in 2005,
2009 continued to be a difficult year both on personal and business level. His brother and close associate Anees Ibrahim was shot dead in June . This compounds the grief of the loss of another Brother, Noora, earlier in the year .

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Sufism

Sufism

Although Sufiism is not directly connected to Sikhism, some of its adherents had good links with the Sikh Gurus. Sheikh Farid Shakarganj, whose bani was included in the Adi Granth by Guru Arjan. Saints like Sain Bulley Shah, Sain Mian Mir, Shah Mohammed, Waris Shah and Kadir Yaar etc. were pinnacles of the Punjabi language. Their sufi kalaams and poetry are a pleasure to read and to relish the beauty of the Punjabi language. We present a brief history of this revered and distinct sect taken with courtesy from H.A.Rose's "Tribes & Castes of Punjab".(Kanwal)

SUFI

One of the class of Muhammadan free-thinkers, mystics or pantheists: one who uses nothing intoxicating. Punjabi Dicty., p. 1072.

The term is generally derived from Arabic word 'Su'f', ' wool,' but it is probably a corruption of the Greek sophos, 'wise.' Any discussion of the Sufi doctrines and practices must be reserved for the introductory volume, but below will be found a list of the Sufi schools, orders and sects, as they may be styled, provided no very precise definitions of those terms is postulated.

A Sufi Faqir

It is usually said that the Sufi orders are 14 in number. These are: -

The Ajmi founded by, or named after, Khwaja Habib Ajmi, the Ayazi from Khwa'ja Fuzail, son of Aya'z, whose shrine is at Kufa, the Adhami, from Khwaja Ibrahim Khan, whose shrine is at Baghdad, the CHISHTI, the HUBAIRI, the KAZRUNI, the Tusi, the SUHRAWARDI, the Firdosi from S. Najam-ud-din Firdos, the Karkhi, the Qadiri, the Siqti, the Naqshbandi and the Zaidi.

Of these orders, the oldest is the Qadria, founded about 1100 A. D. by Abdul Qadir Jilani, the Pir Dastgir (see below) whose shrine is at Baghdad, a descendant of Ali, through the martyr Hassan, according to the genealogies preserved in India, and while it appears certain, on the one hand, that the order is, historically, a Shia development, on the other it is undoubtedly connected with Sufiism, Abdul-Qadir being reverenced by the Sufis.

But, according to Ibbetson, most of the Sunni divines of the North-West frontier are Qadiri, and the Akhu'nd of Swat belongs to the order. They sit for hours repeating the following declaration: ' Thou art the guide, Thou art the truth, there is none but Thee!"

The Qadria sect has had several branches in India, as, for example, the Muqimia, PAKRAHMANIA and NAUSHAHI. Closely connected with the Qadria is the SUHRAWARDI order. From this order again branched off the JALALIS. Another Sufi order, sometimes described as one of the 32 Shia sects, is tile Naqshbandi or mystics.* Its foundation is sometimes ascribed to Pir Muhammad whose tomb is in the Kasar-u-Urfan at Bokhara and who appears to have flourished in Persia about 1300 A. D., but Khwaja Bahau-ud-Din is more generally regarded as its originator. According to Maclagan the sect was introduced into India by Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi whose priestly genealogy is traced back to Abu Bakr the first Caliph. Last, but not least, comes the Chistia sect, founded in Khorasan, and revived in the 13th century by Khwaja Farid-ud-Din Shakar-Ganj, in the Punjab, in which province it has fifteen gaddis or shrines.

And yet again from this sect branched off the Nizamias or disciple. of Khwaja Nizam-ud-Din, Aulia Dehlavi, or Muhammad-bin-Ahmad Danial, a disciple of Khwaja Farid-ud-Din Shakar-Ganj.

The Muqimia or Maqim-Shahi are followers of Shah Muqim of Hujra in Montgomery. Its founder was a Qadiri, and he himself conformed to the rules of that order, but some of its present adherents do not follow them.

The Qadiri shrines in the Punjab come next to those of the Chishtis in importance and number. They include such shrines as that of Khwaja Qumais at Sadhora in Ambala. A characteristic story describes how Raim Ram Deo, a Bhatti Rajput of Kapurthala, held the tract round Batala (now in Gurdaspur) in farm under Bahlol Khan Lodi in 1472 A. D. He became a disciple of Shaikh Muhammad Qadiri of Lahore and founded a town, but, as the site first chosen was considered inauspicious, it was changed, at the astrologers' advice, to the present site of Batala, which derives its name from the exchange-batta or vatta..