Talk Islam

Tagged: Maldives Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Zack 10:49 pm on January 27, 2011 Permalink
  Tags: 23andme, afghanistan ( 507 ), ancestry, bangladesh ( 49 ), bhutan, Burma ( 10 ), genetics ( 13 ), genomics, India ( 234 ), iran ( 431 ), Maldives, Nepal ( 3 ), Pakistan ( 682 ), south asia ( 10 ), Sri Lanka ( 34 ), tibet   

  South Asia is a huge region with more than 1.5 billion people and a lot of diversity. Current public genome databases do not have a lot of samples from South Asia. Also, a number of samples that do exist are from small, isolated groups like the Kalash or Burusho. Being of South Asian descent, I thought that it would be good to analyze genome data from different South Asian groups for a better understanding of our ancestry. Thus was born the Harappa Ancestry Project. I named it after Harappa, an archaeological site of the Indus Valley Civilization in Punjab, Pakistan.

  People of South Asian origin, or from neighboring countries, are eligible to participate in this project. The list of countries of origin I am accepting are as follows:

  • Afghanistan
  • Bangladesh
  • Bhutan
  • Burma
  • India
  • Iran
  • Maldives
  • Nepal
  • Pakistan
  • Sri Lanka
  • Tibet

  Right now, I am only accepting raw data samples from people who have tested with 23andme.

  If you would like to participate, please send your All DNA raw data text file (zipped is better) downloaded from 23andme to harappa@zackvision.com along with ancestral background information about you and all four of your grandparents. Background information would include where they were born, mother tongue, caste/community to which they belonged, etc. Please provide as much ancestry information as possible and try to be specific. Do especially include information about any ancestry from outside South Asia. Please do not send data from close relatives.

  Please spread the word!

  Zack and aziz are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    aziz 6:48 am on January 28, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

    i wish i hadn’t missed the boat on the $99 deal. Is there a way to be informed automatically next time they run it?

    I wonder if you can get 23andme to sponsr a special rate for people participating in the project? might be worth approaching them. Razib is probably known to them as well, so you could get him to help make the case.

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      Zack 7:22 pm on January 28, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      If you follow Razib on twitter or Facebook, you won’t miss a 23andme sale.

      Now that I have an interest in more people testing and participating in the Harappa Project, I’ll keep an eye out and announce any sales.
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  thabet 7:27 am on June 4, 2010 Permalink
  Tags: apostates ( 5 ), Islam ( 451 ), Maldives, religion ( 521 ), Society ( 65 ), state ( 201 )   

  ‘Counselling’ leads to a Maldivian apostate ‘repenting and rejoining Islam’:

  A Maldivian man who publicly declared himself an apostate during a speech by Islamic speaker Dr Zakir Naik on Friday evening has repented and offered a public apology on Television Maldives (TVM).

  Mohamed Nazim gave Shahada – the Muslim testimony of belief – during a press conference held at the Islamic Ministry today.

  He also apologised for causing “agony for the Maldivian people”, and said “major misconceptions I had regarding Islam have been clarified.”

  He further requested that the community accept him back into society.

  After describing himself to Dr Naik as “Maldivian but not a Muslim” on Friday night, Nazim was escorted from Maafaanu stadium by Islamic Ministry officials into police custody. Several officers were attacked for trying to protect Nazim when members of the crowd turned violent, calling for his death.

  Of course, the death threats and social ostracisation he (and perhaps his family) faced on a tiny island had nothing whatsoever to do with his repentance.

  thabet, midwinterspring, Pretty Pink Unicorns, and 4 others are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    mirelle 7:50 am on June 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

    The Maldivian constitution requires all citizens be Muslim. So, in addition to everything else, he could have been stripped of his citizenship. At least, on paper, we don’t have this problem in the USA.

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      issay 5:21 pm on June 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      whats the problem if Maldivian constitution requires , A Maldivian to be muslim? or if take citizenship if he violates constitution? France require to learn french before giving citizenship? Australia have a Test you have to pass before gaining citizenship . And I heard that Americans are also thinking to remove citizenship from people who involve in terrorist activities !

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        Pretty Pink Unicorns 7:31 pm on June 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        So you are equating the stripping of citizenship from terrorists – which action, by the way, I condemn in the strongest way – with Not Being a Muslim?

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          midwinterspring 2:47 am on June 5, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          On the flip side, I was struck by the apparent claim that being a Muslim is like speaking French.

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    Willow 9:04 am on June 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

    This is really upsetting. I had thought the Maldivian government so progressive after the strong stance they’ve taken on climate change and its impact on poor countries…guess not.

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      Lawrence of Arabia 11:54 am on June 4, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Historically, concerns for “nature”, ecology, etc. a not very strong indicators that a person or group holds socially or politically progressive views. Think Heidegger, or some of the Romantics (who were a socially and politically ambiguous bunch), just for starters.

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        thabet 4:03 am on June 5, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Richard Nixon was the force behind the US EPA a number of acts aimed at protecting the environment.

        There isn’t much by Harold Macmillan on the environment (not a pressing concern back then), but I imagine as someone who upheld the idea of “noblesse oblige” and was sceptical about privatisation, he would also have ‘pro-environment’ views.

        It’s only the last 20 years — thanks to Reagan and Thatcher — that being to the ‘right’ or a ‘political conservative’ can be equated with an aggressive attack on ‘regulation’.

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  thabet 6:53 am on June 1, 2010 Permalink
  Tags: apostasy ( 51 ), atheism ( 61 ), freedom of religion ( 94 ), Islam ( 451 ), Maldives, muslims ( 433 )   

  The Islamic Ministry of the Maldives is arranging religious counselling for a man who declared he is an atheist in public during a lecture by Zakir Naik:

  Islamic Ministry is arranging religious counseling for the Maldivian man who declared his atheist status to the public, the ministry has revealed Sunday.

  Minister of Islamic Affairs Dr Abdul Majeed Abdul Baaree told Haveeru that the ministry has asked police to investigate the case of Mohamed Nazim, 37, and is preparing to give him counseling.

  “We are preparing for that [counselling]. We have to find out what kind of doubts he has about Islam,” he said.

  Police confirmed the investigation and said the Criminal Court granted a warrant to extend Nazim’s custodial period for five days.

  Nazim announced he did not believe in a religion during the Q&A session of a lecture given by visiting Indian scholar Dr Zakir Naik Friday evening.

  Two men were arrested for alleged assault on officers who tried to stop an angry crowd from attacking Nazim but were released later, Police said.

  Speaking to Voice of Maldives (VOM) Saturday, Baaree claimed Naik was “shocked” by Nazim’s revelation in front of some 11,000 people.

  “He [Naik] said that although he has lectured and debated with people in several countries of the world, this is the first time he has seen a Muslim expressing views against Islam. But non-Muslims have debated him like Nazim did, about the doubts they have regarding Islam. But this is the first time he has seen a Muslim or a person belonging to Islam declaring that he was leaving Islam,” he said.

   
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  johnpi 8:59 pm on September 8, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: climate ( 9 ), environment ( 27 ), environmentalism ( 18 ), Maldives   

  Maldives to introduce green tax on tourists.

  The Maldives archipelago, threatened by rising sea levels blamed on climate change, said on Monday it would introduce a new environment tax on all tourists who use its resorts and provide its economic lifeline.
  ….

  “We have introduced a green tax. It’s in the pipeline. It’s a matter of parliament approving it and I hope parliament will approve it — $3 per each tourist a day,” Nasheed told reporters in Male, the capital of the Indian Ocean archipelago.

  I’d like to credit the Maldivians with trying to take control of their environmental destiny, but they will probably only use the money to buy up land in Sri Lanka, India or Australia to relocate the entire population of their country.

   
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  johnpi 5:18 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: adultery ( 12 ), conservative Muslims ( 9 ), flogging, Maldives, Wahhabis ( 9 ), wahhabism ( 16 )   

  150 Maldivian adulteresses to be flogged (50 men too).

  In the Maldives, an island nation made up of more than 1200 atolls, the issue of flogging has become a political battleground following the whipping of the teenager earlier this month outside a government building in the capital, Male. Reports said that the women required hospital treatment after she was flogged in front of a jeering crowd of men.

  Since then there have been a number of demonstrations in favour of flogging and several articles published defending its use. Since the case was publicised there have been a number of demonstrations in support of flogging, some calling for the deportation of a British journalist, Maryam Omidi, who published reports of the incident in the local Minivan News. “It’s hard to tell whether this is indicative of a wider feeling, because people are afraid to speak out,” Omidi said. “But I had people calling me up to offer their support.”

  And there’s this:

  Reports suggest that in recent years, many mosques in the Maldives have fallen under the influence of foreign, conservative imams. The previous president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had been Asia’s longest-serving ruler and who positioned himself as the country’s “defender of Islam”, had sought to use the religion to bolster his dwindling. The government in turn said that more conservative forms of the religion had been able to spread as restrictions on freedom of expression were lifted.

  Tagging this ‘Wahhabi’ because I gather from reports its that set of teachings that is ‘taking over’ in the Maldives.

   
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  razib, murtad fitri 3:44 pm on April 11, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: global warming ( 9 ), Maldives   

  maldives being inundated, link:

  This chain of islands in the Indian Ocean is about three feet above sea level, and scientists fear it could be submerged by 2050. A $63 million buffer built in the 1990s hasn’t solved the problem, so the government is in talks to relocate all 386,000 of its residents to either Sri Lanka, Australia, or India. That would end the Maldives’ tourism industry—more than 600,000 people visit annually—which accounts for 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

  in the maldives you have to be a sunni muslim to be a citizen, so why aren’t any sunni muslim majority nations on the list of possibilities? a little googling brings up these same countries, though the gov’s relationship to these specific possibilities are a bit tenuous (though explicit mooting of the possibility of relocation has already occurred). sri lanka and india are offered as nations with cultural similarities, true, as maldives was settled from sri lanka by sinhalese in antiquity, but religion is a big variable too.

   
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  johnpi 1:07 pm on March 30, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Maldives, Mayotte   

  As the Maldives drift into Saudi-funded Wahhabi-extremist tyranny by denying non-Muslims citizenship and bullying local imams into practicing an ‘official’ version of ritual perfection, another majority Muslim island community in the Indian Ocean has overwhelmingly voted to integrate fully with France, a move that will bring financial benefits to residents but also outlaw practices such as polygamy and early marriages.

   
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  johnpi 9:01 pm on March 24, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: censorship ( 53 ), Maldives   

  Ah, cowardly conservative values. In the Maldives, the new president and former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed made the mistake of handing the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and its media censorship powers over to a conservative Islamic party, which promptly began blocking all sorts of websites. One had just uploaded an audio clip of a Maldivian Imam stating he was threatened by a state minister of islamic affairs if he didn’t tow their line. Hmmm.