Like Islam, Islamic movement too, is highly misunderstood by both the Muslims and the non-Muslims. Many people think it mere a political cry of a few extremist fanatics for capturing power. To them, it is not a core belief of the mainstream Muslim faith, but a doctrine of a few. So they label them as deviants from Islam. Movement itself gives a connotation that it entails educating, training, organising and mobilising people for a political end. They can not think of such a political agenda for Muslims in any Muslim and non-Muslim country. Instead, they have their own prescription for the Muslims.

They do not believe the official headcount regarding the Muslim population. They complain that the government has an ill-motive behind showing a lower number for the Muslims in India. The Muslims don't even have a 2 percent stake in the government service which is very insignificant in relation to the total Muslim population in India. The actual account of deprivation will become manifest if the correct statistics of the Indian Muslims are revealed. As a result, dissatisfaction will rise and people will strive to claim their rights. The increase in number will boost their morale and self-confidence, and accelerate their political uprising. The Muslims believe that this fear of uprising instigated the manipulation of the Muslim population statistics. The actual number of the Indian Muslims is kept as secret as the number of the Indian soldiers; hence is the nonchalance to reveal the actual headcount by the government.

Sins or misdeeds always precipitate a Divine curse. Such a belief is an indispensable element of Islamic faith. The greatest misdeed of the ruling Awami League is its purposive misrule. It is the nurture of the wicked and punishing the innocent. The published reports in the main stream media show that the unprecedented increase in crime owes to inaction of the prosecution, and in many cases encouragement of the political hooligans and party terrorists. Whenever Awami League - the present ruling party - ascended to the power showed unprecedented strength in spreading lawlessness, corruption and other elements of despotism, and not in implementing the rule of law. The party turned the state-craft into an instrument of repression. Such state-sponsored misdeeds always bring wrath from the Almighty Allah. Awami League indeed showed talent in ushering that; whenever the party was in power, whatever short period it may be, jeopardised the country's peace and tranquillity. During its rule in 1954, it turned the parliament a combat ground, and the deputy speaker - Mr. Shahed Ali - became a casualty of such blatant state terrorism.

Dr Firoz Mahboob Kamal, MBBS, MPH*, Dr Abdullahel Hadi, MS** Dr A. Mushtaque R. Chowdhury, Ph.D***

In the powerful melting pot of the West, people of different creed, culture and beliefs are being moulded into a single brand. The current deluge of the western culture largely owes to its mighty television, films, media and other propaganda skills. Clashes of civilisations in the past almost always precipitated clashes of cultures. The cultural boundary was found to be a common precursor of the geographical boundary. People formed state, fought wars, made alliances just to protect their distinctive cultures, but now the cultural invasions goes on unarmed. Invasions through borders are now seldom required except for regime change and ethnic cleansing. Nations are being subdued with out firing even a single shot. When cultural distinctiveness disappears, the reason for maintaining a costly independent entity hardly exists. Through the same process, the German, the French, the Italian, the Spanish and other nations in the North America lost their own distinctiveness and gave birth to the USA.

Drug addiction is now spreading like wild fire. Not only the developing countries like Bangladesh or Pakistan are in its grip; even the most developed countries like the USA and the UK are equally helpless. Measures taken so far to control this malice did not bring any discernible success even in developed countries. Britain spends about 300 million pounds a year to tackle this problem but still fumbling. Ms. Oona King MP of Tower Hamlet calls her constituency the ‘Heroin Capital’, despite huge spending on this issue by the local council. Such failures are clear proof that there exist flaws in understanding the real causes and devising the treatment. Drug addiction itself is not a disease; the disease lies much deeper. It is not a physical illness with visible anomaly; it is moral and cultural.

Exploitation, subjugation and physical annihilation against weaker nations are not the only crimes of the European colonialists. In Islamic countries, they went further to rock their moral fabrics that were built through centuries. Institutionalised practice of such immorality in the form of prostitution is such an immoral colonial legacy in Bangladesh. They nurtured and sponsored such a vice as a profession. These colonialists descended on that Muslim land from a different social, cultural and moral milieu. Secularisation left them bereft of moral values that could prevent them from institutionalisation of such a sin. Their hedonist lust took them to promiscuity, homosexuality, prostitution and other perversions that were unknown at least in the public arena. These were indeed severely punishable offence in any Muslim land. Unfettered sex was not a crime in their value system, but in Bangladesh they did not have institutional premise to put that in practice. Hence, they launched prostitution not only as a trade, but also an institution.