Content about Education

Fulfilling our commitment to serve humanity, the International Quranic Open University (IQOU), under the direction and guidance of His Eminence Vice Chancellor Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, will once again send forth competent students to provide assistance to our less fortunate brothers and sisters in Africa, a continent fraught with poverty, illiteracy, disease and high mortality rates.  Mali, one of the poorest countries in Africa, has been selected to serve as the launching place of IQOU’s newest project: Mali Health And Development Initiative (MHDI).

Hakima Fatimah Ash-Shakur of Aliville, Georgia, and Mahmoudou Sidibe and his family, from Montreal, Canada, will be departing for the West African country to begin work on the project in the coming months.

Islam has long been present in West Africa, with a long-standing Sufi tradition.  Due to this history, Mali represents a great base for IQOU to begin its work. Over the centuries, these Islamic spiritual orders were very instrumental in establishing true Islam.

The Tunisia Constitutional Council on January 15 officially announced that President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has permanently left the office of the president after his flight from the country in the face of mass protests. Tunisians had overtaken government buildings demanding the resignation of the president, with his intention not to run for a sixth term of office.
The leader of the lower house of parliament, Foued Mebezza, is assuming until elections are held in two months, as reported by Maureen Cosgrove of Jurist.

On June 8, 1967, two squadrons of Israeli warplanes bombed, napalmed and machine-gunned the US intelligence-gathering ship, USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 US sailors and wounding another 172.  The assault took place on a sunny afternoon, with the US flag and identifying markers clearly visible.  The Israelis targeted the antennae to prevent the crew from broadcasting for help and shot up the lifeboats to ensure no survivors.  There were, however, survivors who rigged up an antenna and radioed their distress, a call for help that reached Washington D.C.  In an unprecedented act of betrayal, President Johnson, in close liaison with powerful American Jewish Zionist political backers, covered up the mass murder on the high seas by issuing orders first to recall Mediterranean-based warplanes from rushing to assist their besieged comrades, then threatening to court-martial the survivors who might expose the deliberate nature of the Israeli assault and finally by repeating the Israeli line that the attack was a matter of mistaken identity, a lie which numerous military leaders later rejected.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) says it is “a matter of serious concern” that the Obama Administration rebuked the recent announcement of settlement expansion as “a deeply negative signal.” AIPAC is calling “on the Administration to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish State,” after an ill-timed announcement made by the Israeli government during the height of US Vice President Joe Biden’s Middle East tour that settlements in East Jerusalem would increase by 1600 persons.