Islamist militant outfit threatens to kill Prof Zafar Iqbal

[Puck]

Originally Posted by sunny747

I was born long after the birth of Bangladesh. but by reading his book, i got to know many truth about Bangladesh.
Mostly his writing is against the rajakers and paki minded ppl hence these ppl trying to kill him.

i spent the first 12 years of my existence in bangladesh. i was born four years after bangladesh came into existence. i had never heard of him prior to this thread. i thank you for letting me know about him. i feel obligated that we should start a consciousness movement to raise his profile as a fair minded scholar. that would be the only way to alienate the extremists. how could we do this?

[sunny747]

Originally Posted by Puck
i spent the first 12 years of my existence in bangladesh. i was born four years after bangladesh came into existence. i had never heard of him prior to this thread. i thank you for letting me know about him. i feel obligated that we should start a consciousness movement to raise his profile as a fair minded scholar. that would be the only way to alienate the extremists. how could we do this?

for your info..
Dr. Mohammed Zafar Iqbal (b. 1952) is a popular writer of children's books and science-fiction, as well as a scientist, academician and researcher. Born in Bangladesh, he had a distinguished career at Caltech and then worked for Bell labs in New Jersey. He has a number of publications and patents to his name.

[sunny747]

Puck, if you can read bangla then you might find this interesting. This was at today's prothom-alo. Dr Zafar wrote about our muktijodho conductor TAzuddin ahmed. Absence of Sheikh mujib (jailed in Pakiland), he is the one who planned our war against the paki's.

http://www.prothom-alo.net/V1/mcat.n...2OTU2&mid=Mw==

[BD-Shardul]

No people in this earth is angel. But as I see, like the fans of Ashraful, those who like Dr. Iqbal will idolize him and will overlook what he did wrong, as if whatever he says or writes are correct and should be accepted without question.

[Equinox]

I hope this government takes strong action against these groups. If not for the people then for themselves and their own political motives.

[RazabQ]

Given that his dad was shot by the Pakistan Army as part of the intellectual massacre, I can see how he would have a tough time getting over the whole rajakar stuff. And recalling Arnab's aggro-atheism, I can see how he would be one to goad Islamists. Still, a man who is so learned and accomplished - you'd think he'd learn to be a tad more diplomatic. Oh well ...

The people who wrote this "death threat" are low class abusers of Islam.

[BD-Shardul]

Originally Posted by RazabQ
Given that his dad was shot by the Pakistan Army as part of the intellectual massacre

His dad (RIP) was not killed as part of intellectual massacre. He was martyred during April-May, 1971 by Pakistani forces. He is buried in Pirojpur, I guess.

[Zeeshan]

Anyways, I havent read the whole thread and dont want to involve myself in the nitty-gritty details of the politics, but I hope this threat is not taken lightly. Ironically enuff, the Grimm brothers who are so vehemently opposed to RAB's actions should at best rely on them for help!!

[cricket_pagol]

I feel bad for Zafar Iqbal, I hope the govt takes appropriate action to protect him.

As for the natok/book that Alfurqaan bhai mentioned, there must be other books of zafar iqbal where he portray character who pray regularly in a positive light!!! Even if he does not have such books, you cannot blame him for writing a fiction where the characters are biased.

Besides, I know many people in bangladesh who pray five times a day and have all these crazy beliefs... This is not a portrayal of Islam, this is partly due to our culture and there are always some crazy people in every society where you cannot explain their behavior by using logic!

[auntu]

Originally Posted by BD-Shardul
I admire Jafor Iqbal for all that he has achieved as a scientist and as a professor. He claims that he is an atheist and I have no problem with that. But he is a blind BAL supporter and sometimes can't refrain from taking pokes at Islam. In one of his story (probably titled "bhoyanok nana"), he negatively portrayed a character who recites prayers to keep the devils/jinns away from him. All over the story, through the character of nana, he portrayed Islam as a very backward and out-dated religion. A drama was made too based on that story. What's the point of such cheap writing from a scholar like Dr. Iqbal? If we can tolerate his open atheism, why can't he tolerate the belief of others? But no matter what he says and writes, death threat can't be justified and the government should provide full security for him. Mollahs should know that they should not take law in their hands. Allah and the prophet have issued many warnings in the Quran and Hadith that strongly disapprove killing and creating anarchy in the society.

Unfortunately in our country, be it a PhD like J Iqbal or the Mollahs, can't stay in line with the principle of live and let live. Secularists and atheists advocate freedom but never fails to take poke at those who truly and peacefully practise Islam, while Mollahs preach Islam but by taking law in their hands, disregard the fact that the sole authority to judge people's action and requite accordingly lies in the hands of by Allah, not with any other.

মনের কথা

[Puck]

Originally Posted by sunny747
Puck, if you can read bangla then you might find this interesting. This was at today's prothom-alo. Dr Zafar wrote about our muktijodho conductor TAzuddin ahmed. Absence of Sheikh mujib (jailed in Pakiland), he is the one who planned our war against the paki's.

http://www.prothom-alo.net/V1/mcat.n...2OTU2&mid=Mw==

i do indeed read bangla. for some strange reason online bangla text is a major problem for me. i get severe eyestrain which does not appear to be the case when reading bengali books in print or for that matter any latin alphabet based text online

[Puck]

Originally Posted by BD-Shardul
I admire Jafor Iqbal for all that he has achieved as a scientist and as a professor. He claims that he is an atheist and I have no problem with that. But he is a blind BAL supporter and sometimes can't refrain from taking pokes at Islam. In one of his story (probably titled "bhoyanok nana"), he negatively portrayed a character who recites prayers to keep the devils/jinns away from him. All over the story, through the character of nana, he portrayed Islam as a very backward and out-dated religion. A drama was made too based on that story. What's the point of such cheap writing from a scholar like Dr. Iqbal? If we can tolerate his open atheism, why can't he tolerate the belief of others? But no matter what he says and writes, death threat can't be justified and the government should provide full security for him. Mollahs should know that they should not take law in their hands. Allah and the prophet have issued many warnings in the Quran and Hadith that strongly disapprove killing and creating anarchy in the society.

Unfortunately in our country, be it a PhD like J Iqbal or the Mollahs, can't stay in line with the principle of live and let live. Secularists and atheists advocate freedom but never fails to take poke at those who truly and peacefully practise Islam, while Mollahs preach Islam but by taking law in their hands, disregard the fact that the sole authority to judge people's action and requite accordingly lies in the hands of by Allah, not with any other.

secularism is all about separating spiritual matters from everyday life and sanctioning the spirituality to the sphere it belongs to, the spiritual world. the freedom of expression allowed in the pursuance of fiction should allow for the depiction of the religious sphere within fiction without any fear of alienating the mullahs and 'wannabe' mullahs. in a real secular society, the cultural aspect of faith could be discussed in fiction without fear of offending wannabe mullahs.

[Blah]

Originally Posted by Puck
i do indeed read bangla. for some strange reason online bangla text is a major problem for me. i get severe eyestrain which does not appear to be the case when reading bengali books in print or for that matter any latin alphabet based text online

Probably because you don't have the right bangla font installed.

In case of ittefaq the font renders properly for me, but for prothom-alo they use a non-standard bangla font which is why it didn't work properly (for me).

You can download ittefaq font from here: "sutom"
You can download prothom alo font here: "bangsee alpona"

To install font under windows. Download > right click file > install
..or copy the downloaded font files to C:\WINDOWS\Fonts

Seems to work fine under IE8 and FF3.5 but not so much under Chrome and Opera.

[Hatebreed]

Mohammad Jafar Iqbal is one of my favourite authors ever. Regardless of his political allegiences or beliefs, he really is a good person who I don't believe truly bears any ill-feelings towards Islam. I hope the security services take every step necessary to protect him from harm and arrest those who made this cowardly threat against his life.

Just because some people may not be tolerant of Islam does not give its followers the license to make threats against their lives, which only serve to benefit those people and hurt Islam even more. To fight intolerance Muslims need to be even more tolerant, to fight ignorance Muslims must educate people about Islam. This is a time for healing for Islam and its followers, not waging war; no matter how wrong and ignorant its critics are.