LIFESTYLE 17 - 18
UMMAH 19 - 20
EDUCATION 21
BUSINESS 22
UMMAH
SOCIAL 23
My elderly parents were sent to a concentration camp These testimonies are the stories of Uyghurs and Falun Gong Practitioners affected by the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to commit genocide against them and other minorities. Their families and friends are at risk of forced organ harvesting. Many have pledged to never source an organ from China if they ever needed one. END TRANSPLANT ABUSE IN CHINA
Rayhangul Abliz My name is Rayhangul Abliz, and I am an Australian Uyghur who currently lives in Melbourne. I came to Australia in February 2010, and it has been 11 years since I have been living here. This testimony that I am giving regards my parents. My father’s name is Abliz Tohti, he is 71 years old, and he is from Artush, Arghu. My dad was a long-term businessman however due to his old age and deteriorating health he decided to quit and instead rest at home. My mother’s name is Aygul Heyit, and she is a 68-year-old housewife. In 2016 both my parents travelled to Egypt for a holiday. Whilst they were in Egypt, they went to the Saudi consulate to try and apply for a visa, but the visa was denied, and they went back home after their holiday. After they came back from Egypt, the Chinese police did not give them any rest. Almost every day they would go to my parent’s home and interrogate them about their holiday in Egypt. A couple of times a week my parents were required to go to the local council and were forced to write a sworn statement, as well as statements praising Xi Jinping. They were also oppressed in other ways, including being forced to deny their religion. During this time, it was very difficult for me to communicate with my parents. In April 2018 I heard that my parents were detained in concentration camps. I lost all contact with my parents, relatives and friends. Because I had no contact with them anymore, I believed my parents were still in concentration camps. No matter what I did I was unable to con-
tact them and get any sort of information about their whereabouts and their well-being. At the beginning of 2021 I reached out to the Australian Department of foreign affairs and trade ‘China Policy’ office to ask them for help in getting information for me about my parents. After their correspondence with the Chinese embassy, they contacted me in May and told me that since April 2018 both of my parents had been sentenced to 14 years in prison for supporting “terrorist activities”. My father was a normal man, just trying to live his life in peace at home since he was unable to work as a businessman any more due to his worsening health conditions. As for my mother, she was a simple lady who dedicated her whole life to looking after her kids and her home. To give out a prison sentence of 14 years to my father who is 71 years old and to my mother who is 68 years old is no different than sentencing them both to life in prison. Putting the charge of “supporting terrorist activities” to the side, my parents don’t even know the meaning of the word terrorist. The Chinese government is targeting innocent, simple and kind-hearted Uyghurs, and they are pressing them. The genocide against Uyghurs continues and is getting worse and worse every day. It’s not just my parents who have been detained; it’s millions of Uyghurs who are suffering and have been tortured in these concentration camps and prisons that were solely made to destroy our people. In 2017 when the crackdown on the week has had begun, both my parents were detained in concentration camps in May 2017. During their detainment they got really scared, and due to the serious health conditions, they suffered from hypertension and were then released on probation on house arrest. During this time my parents were so scared that they cut off all their contact with
AMUST
Rayhangul’s elderly father Abliz Tohti and mother Aygul Heyit were detained by the Chinese government in 2018 and sent to concentration camps.
me and refuse to pick up my phone calls when I called them. Due to this reason, it was extremely difficult for me to get any proper information regarding their well-being. Until now the world has been silent on this issue. Even if they heard about it or saw the evidence, they are acting like they haven’t seen or heard anything. It is the 21st century and genocide is happening right in front of everyone, yet the world is refusing to open its eyes. What I am asking and hoping from the United Nations, the European Union and all the Democratic nations of the world, is to put an end to the Uyghur genocide, to help
the Uyghurs, and to prevent China from spreading its poison to the rest of the world. I also urge the people of the world to stand on the side of truth and justice. The International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), China Aid and supporting organizations are asking for your help to raise awareness of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China and mobilize a global movement to end this transplant abuse. Take the pledge: endtransplantabuse.org/pledge
Highly influential scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, passed away Continued from page 1 His critics called him names, and he never retaliated with anger. His enemies were after his life; he never sought intervention except from his Creator to seek protection, and his critics tried to accuse him, but he never hurt them back. The author had the opportunity to spend two days with Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi when he visited in India in the 1970’s. The Jamat-e-Islami assigned the author to take him around. During the two days, we visited Delhi University and Jawahar Lal University. He did not mind riding the back seat of a Vespa scooter and eating lunch at the JNU street food store. He was straightforward and had a great sense of humor. He led the mass funeral prayer in in 1979 at Lahore City Stadium, of his compatriot, Syed Abul Ala Maudoodi, the founder of a sister organisation of Muslim Brotherhood in South Asia, Jamaat-e-Islami. Born on September 9, 1926, in a small village Saft Turab rural in the Nile Delta, now in Gharbia Governorate, Egypt, Yusuf al-Qaradawi lost his father when he was under two. His uncle raised him. The world population was 1.86 billion at that time. When he left the world, a great majority of about two billion Muslims out of eight million people knew him through his works, particularly the Sharia and life and the and OCTOBER 2022 / ISSUE 203
the Permitted (Halal) and Prohibited (Haram) in Islam. France and UUK denied him entry into their countries during the latter days of his life, but they could not stop his writing from reaching millions. After his initial studies in Tanta, he studied Islamic Theology at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, from which he graduated in 1953. He earned a diploma in Arabic Language and Literature in 1958 at the Advanced Arabic Studies Institute. After that, he enrolled in the graduate program in the Department of Quran and Sunnah Sciences of the Faculty of Religion’s Fundamentals (Usul alDin) and graduated with a master’s degree in Quranic Studies in 1960. In 1962, Al-Azhar University sent him to Qatar to head the Qatari Secondary Institute of Religious Studies. He completed his Ph.D. thesis titled Zakah and its effect on solving social problems in 1973 with First Merit and was awarded his Ph.D. from AlAzhar. He was in prison under King Farouq in 1949, then three more times during the term of President Gamal Abdul Nasser. Finally, he left Egypt for Qatar in 1961 and did not return until the overthrow of the military regime by the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. In 1977, he laid the foundation for the Faculty of Shari’ah and Islamic Studies at
the University of Qatar, became the faculty’s dean, and founded the Centre of Seerah and Sunna Research. In 1997, Al-Qaradawi helped found the European Council for Fatwa and Research, a council of important and influential Muslim scholars dedicated to researching and writing fatwas in support of Western Muslim minority communities based in Ireland, and he served as its head. He also served as the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) chairman. In the wake of the 2011 Revolution, he returned to Egypt for the first time since leaving in 1961. He opposed religious extremism of all kinds. However, in his dissertation on Islamic awakening between Rejection and Extremism, he blames older Muslim generations for extremism among Muslims. He advocated Sufism and practiced it also. He sought reconciliation between Shias and Sunnis and Muslims and non-Muslims. Qaradawi wrote that Islam does not prohibit Muslims from being kind and generous to people of other religions. However, Islam looks upon the People of the Book, Jews, and Christians; he advised Muslims to avoid approaches that may arouse hostility towards others. He opposed punishment for apostasy and asked Muslims to guard the values of their religion. He was an ardent supporter of de-
WWW.AMUST.COM.AU
mocracy and advocated the establishment of city states with a religious background. He opposed theocracy. He described Islam as the religion of tolerance that holds the human soul in high esteem and considers the attack on innocent human beings a grave sin. He opposed domestic violence, niqab, female genital mutilation, honor killing, and stoning by death. Al-Qaradawi was born in Egypt but lived in Qatar. He had three sons and four daughters, three of whom hold doctorates from British Universities. His daughter, Ilham Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, is an internationally recognized nuclear scientist. His son, Abdulrahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, is a poet and a political activist in Egypt. Al-Qaradawi authored more than 120 books, and his academic style Some consider his book Fiqh al-Zakat as the most comprehensive work in the area of Zakat. Abul Ala Maududi commented on it as “the book of this century in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh).” His book Fiqh al-Jihad is the most popular one. The Guardian writes: Qaradawi encourages a “middle way” conception of jihad: “solidarity” with the Palestinians and others on the front line, rather than violence, is an obligatory form of jihad.
AUSTRALASIAN MUSLIM TIMES
19