Minhaj-ul-Quran

Minhaj-ul-Quran International
Founded 1981
Founder Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri
Type NGO
Focus Sufism and spiritual development, human rights, women's rights, tackling extremism, promoting peace, interfaith dialogue and religious moderation
Location
Method Education, Training
Key people
 Hassan Mohi-ud-Din Qadri, Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri, Raheeq Abbasi, Nizam ud din, Zahid Fayyaz, Muhammad Afzal Saeedi, Dawood Mash'hadi
Website Minhaj.org

Minhaj-ul-Quran International (منہاج القرآن انٹرنیشنل) (or MQI) is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri in 1981 in Lahore, Pakistan.[1] It has a long-term strategic vision to promote religious moderation, effective and sound education, inter-faith dialogue and harmony.[2] It has expanded to 100 countries around the globe.[3] Its emphasis is improving the social, cultural and religious condition, enlightening the masses with the knowledge of their rights and duties and presenting a realistic, rational and scientific picture of Islam.

The headquarters of Minhaj-ul-Quran International was inaugurated in 1987 by Tahir Allauddin Al-Qadri Al-Gillani who is regarded as the organization's spiritual founder.[4] The objective of Minhaj-ul-Quran in Europe and the West in general is to create harmony in societies between different cultural, ethnic and religious communities through social interaction, interfaith dialogue and spreading the messages of toleration, respect for others and the benefits of integration. It is the first organisation of its kind that has initiated interfaith dialogues with religious minorities.[5] Qadri is the Chairman of the Muslim Christian Dialogue Forum, where Christian bishops and Muslim clerics and scholars work side by side.[6]

International network

Minhaj-ul-Quran's Logo
Minhaj-ul-Quran India's Logo
Minhaj-ul-Quran International Headquarters, Pakistan

Minhaj-ul-Quran International has expanded to over about 100 countries. It has educational and community centres in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North America, Australia and Africa. Its main offices are in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Barcelona, Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Dublin, New York, Toronto, Sydney, Hong Kong and Tokyo. It established the Directorate of Foreign Affairs at its HQ to co-ordinate and to expand its network abroad.[7]


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Minhaj-ul-Quran
Logo of Minhaj-ul-Quran
Founders & Central figures

Shaykh ul Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri
Hassan Mohi-ud-Din Qadri
Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri

Institutions

The Minhaj University
Farid-e-Millat Research Institute
Minhaj Welfare Foundation

Literature & Notable Works

Irfan-ul-Quran (Translation of the Holy Quran)
Seerat-ar-Rasool (12 Volumes)
Fatwa on Terrorism

Organizations

Al Hidayah (organisation)
Minhaj-ul-Quran India
Minhaj-ul-Quran UK

Minhaj-ul-Quran UK

Main article: Minhaj-ul-Quran UK

Minhaj-ul-Quran UK is the UK branch of the Minhaj-ul-Quran International organisation based in London. MQI started its education, welfare and human rights work in the United Kingdom in 1986 and held its first international conference at Wembley Arena, London. Since then, Minhaj-ul-Quran UK has opened ten community centres serving all parts of the country. It claims to have tens of thousands of affiliates more than 5000 regular members.[8] Its emphases on welfare, education, inter-faith dialogue, moderate Islam, integration-focused policies, and anti-extremism match those of its parent organisation. At the moment the current President of Minhaj ul Quran UK is Muhammad Afzal Saeedi and Ali Abbas bukhari is the General Secretary.

Minhaj-ul-Quran Norway

Minhaj-ul-Quran Norway is the Norwegian branch of the Minhaj-ul-Quran International organisation based in Oslo. MQI established its centre in Norway and Denmark early in 1984. MQI has various community related projects which are supported by the Norwegian Government.[9]

One of the main projects is the Minhaj conflict resolution or Minhaj Konfliktråd (MKR).[10]

Minhaj-ul-Quran Denmark

Minhaj-ul-Quran Denmark is the Danish branch of the Minhaj-ul-Quran International organisation based in Copenhagen. The first centre in Europe was established in Copenhagen. It has various forums including Youth League, Women League and an educational Farghana institute.

Minhaj-ul-Quran Denmark held an international conference on Religion and Radicalism in which among others Mr Jakob Ilum (Director of The Danish Security and Intelligence Service, Prevention Center) was a guest speaker[11]

Minhaj-ul-Quran India

Main article: Minhaj-ul-Quran India

Ideology

The ideology of Minhaj-ul-Quran International is multidimensional and relates to the spiritual, moral, educational and social progress of human beings in the light of a modern and moderate interpretation of the Quran and the sunnah of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It promotes religious moderation, peace and interfaith harmony. In the west it has specialised in tackling extremism and radicalism amongst young Muslims in the hope of reducing the evil of terrorism.[12]

Qadri says he felt the need to establish Minhaj-ul-Quran because, after analysing the work and efforts of contemporary Muslim organisations, he concluded that they all were working on very limited level, none of them had a comprehensive global vision and programme and they lacked co-ordination and co-operation. However, the message of Muhammad was comprehensive and global and therefore the various outstanding characteristics of Minhaj-ul-Quran International are believed to lead to a revival of Muhammad's message.[13] These characteristics include:

Achievements

The educational network of Minhaj-ul-Quran is well known in Pakistan. It runs around one thousand educational institutes, including libraries in Pakistan and a university based in Lahore which was chartered in 2005.[14]

It also runs a successful charity, the Minhaj Welfare Foundation (MWF), that has a global network and aims to provide emergency aid, health care, welfare support and education to the poor and those affected by natural disasters.[15] It is a UK registered charity under the Charity Commission.

Minhaj-ul-Quran has continuously aimed to promote the tolerant, inclusive, peaceful and balanced message of Sufism through the modern and scientific interpretation of Islam, and has distributed over 300,000 books of Tahir-ul-Qadri in the last 25 years. It has produced and distributed millions of video cassettes, CDs and DVDs with lectures of its founder on almost every concept of Islam worldwide.[16]

Minhaj-ul-Quran holds one of the largest annual Itikaf gatherings during the month of Ramadan with approximately 37,000 people sitting congregational Itikaf in 2007. It holds the largest Laylat ul Qadr night event on the 27th Ramadan with millions of attendees.[17][18]

Minhaj-ul-Quran also has revived the concept of celebrating the birthday of Muhammad in the Ummah. The largest annual International Mawlid an-Nabi (Milad un Nabi) event takes place in the grounds of Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore, on the 12th of Rabi' al-awwal and attracts people from all over Pakistan and aboard. The highlight of the event is the speech by Tahir-ul-Qadri, live via satellite from Canada where he is in self-imposed exile, followed by recitation of salutations upon Muhammad.[19] In 2008, due to the limitation of the space at Minar-e-Pakistan, it plans to decentralise the event and will hold events in 5 different cities and broadcast the speech live to all the cities.

On 3 December 2005 Minhaj-ul-Quran established a full-time institution called Gosha-e-Durood where any individual can apply to sit for reciting salutations on Muhammad. In the last two years trillions of salutations have been recited. A building dedicated to this purpose with Mawlana Rumi style minarets is under construction.[20]

It also airs the main lectures of its founder on the private international TV channel QTV (ARY), which enables millions of people abroad to listen.[21]

In the past decade Minhaj-ul-Quran International has successfully established various resources to promote the peaceful and balanced message of Islam using the internet.

Minhaj-ul-Quran International is the first organisation of its kind that has initiated interfaith dialogues with religious minorities in Pakistan. Its founder is the Chairman of the 'Muslim Christian Dialogue Forum' to highlight and promote their citizen rights.[22][23][24]

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has formally recognised and granted a 'Special Consultative Status' to Minhaj-ul-Quran International due to its services in promoting peace, tolerance, interfaith harmony and education, tackling extremism and terrorism, engaging with young Muslims for religious moderation, promoting women’s rights, and providing social welfare and promotion of human rights.[25]

In September 2011, Minhaj-ul-Quran organised a major "Peace for Humanity" conference at Wembley Arena in London at which, under the auspices of Tahir-ul-Qadri, its 12,000 attendees announced a global declaration denouncing racism, interfaith intolerance, extremism and terrorism.[26] Minhaj-ul-Quran strategist Joel Hayward[27] wrote the declaration text for Qadri[28] and was its second formal signatory after Qadri himself. Notably, senior Al-Azhar University leaders and dignitaries then signed it before Minhaj-ul-Quran opened it up via the internet for public signing.[29] They aim to get one million signatures within a year.[26] The London Declaration for Global Peace and Resistance against Extremism is intended as an interfaith document which unequivocally condemns all extremism and terrorism, ”because at the heart of all religions is a belief in the sanctity of the lives of the innocent.”[30] The Declaration adds: “The indiscriminate nature of terrorism, which has in recent years killed far more civilians and other non-combatants than it has combatants, is un-Islamic, un-Judaic, un-Christian and it is indeed incompatible with the true teachings of all faiths.”[30] The London Declaration also “unequivocally condemn[s] anti-Semitism (including when sometimes it is disingenuously clothed as anti-Zionism), Islamophobia (including when it is sometimes disingenuously dressed up as patriotism) and all other forms of racism and xenophobia.”[30] Some extremists have already tried to prevent the success of the Declaration via cyber-attacks on the website hosting it.[31]

Minhaj-ul-Quran leader Dr Tahir-ul Qadri announced the largest March in modern times in Pakistan; a march to take place on 14th Jan 2013 at 'Tahrir Square' Islamabad. The agenda of long march is to voice elimination of feudalism, introduction of real democracy, rule of law and implementation of constitution.[32]

Forums and sub-organisations

References

  1. ↑ Minhaj-ul-Quran - an organisation founded in 1981
  2. ↑ Minhaj-ul-Quran - a sufism based organisation
  3. ↑ Minhaj-ul-Quran International
  4. ↑ Tahir Allauddin - Patron Sufi Saint of Minhaj-ul-Quran
  5. ↑ Canadian daily says Minhaj-ul-Quran promoting interfaith
  6. ↑ Muslim Christian Dialogue Forum
  7. ↑ Directorate of Foreign Affairs Website
  8. ↑ Minhaj-ul-Quran UK
  9. ↑ Minhaj-ul-Quran Norway
  10. ↑ Minhaj Konfliktråd (MKR).<
  11. ↑ Konference Religion and Radicalism
  12. ↑ Advises the Government on how to combat radicalisation of Muslim youth
  13. ↑ About Minhaj-ul-Quran International
  14. ↑ Education Projects of Minhaj-ul-Quran
  15. ↑ Website of Minhaj Welfare Foundation
  16. ↑ Website of Minhaj Books
  17. ↑ Itikaf Introduction
  18. ↑ Around 50,000 to take part in Aitkaf at Minhajul Quran
  19. ↑ International Mawlid-un-Nabi Conference 2010
  20. ↑ About Gosha-e-Darood
  21. ↑ Mawlid shown live on QTV
  22. ↑ Minhaj-ul-Quran International holds demonstration to protest the killing of Shahbaz Bhatti
  23. ↑ Minhaj-ul-Quran International wishes Christian community a Happy Christmas
  24. ↑ MQI celebrates Minorities Day at Sikh Gurdwara Dera Sahib Lahore
  25. ↑ United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
  26. 1 2 “Thousands of Muslims Rally against Extremism in London”, The Times of India, 24 September 2011
  27. ↑ Urdu statement
  28. ↑ Joel Hayward’s Books and Articles: London Declaration
  29. ↑ Sign The Declaration
  30. 1 2 3 "London Declaration for Global Peace and Resistance against Extremism". Retrieved 2011-10-05.
  31. ↑ Extremists block Muslim website just hours after it appears online, Metro, 26 September 2011
  32. ↑ "Tahirul Qadri's entry in political arena". Pak Tribune. Retrieved 2013-01-05.

External links

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