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Rome-Too many Muslims around the world believe that the Islamic faith is under threat when the real problems facing Muslims are poverty, ignorance and gender inequality. This is the view of Indian Muslim author and respected newspaper editor M.J. Akbar, who is in Rome to present the Italian translation of his bestseller Blood Brothers. "The three problems of Islam are not Bush, Blair and Berlusconi, but poverty, ignorance and gender inequality," said Akbar, speaking at the launch of his book, Fratelli di Sangue, at the Rome headquarters of leading Italian news agency Adnkronos. "Without equality for women, Islam will not enter the 19th century, let alone the 20th century," he said. Akbar, who is also editor of the the Indian daily, The Asian Age, called on the West to invest in "soft power" in Muslim countries, investing for example in schools and education, instead of conflict and war.Referring to US president George W. Bush's recent warning of the dangers posed by Iran and how they should be confronted, Akbar warned against war in Iran, saying that it could spark "conflict from the Nile to the Ganges"."It's much better to find resolution in education and economic growth," said Akbar.Turning to his native India, Akbar said that if Italians want to understand India, they must appreciate "it's strength of unity in diversity". He told the entrepreneurs, journalists, and readers at the launch of his book that the Indian subcontinent has one of the largest communities of Muslims in the world and that there are more Muslims in India than in the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Pakistan."The meaning of secularism in India versus that in Europe is that in Europe it involves the elimination of faith," said Akbar. "In India instead, it's leaving space for the other, respect for the other faiths." Akbar said there had been many conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in India, however since 1991, when India began its economic reform programme, there had only been two major sectarian riots in India.He referred to the 1992 incident, when Hindu extremists demolished a mosque in Ayodhya, triggering widespread Hindu-Muslim violence and the inter-religious riots that broke out after Hindu pilgrims were killed in a train fire in the western state of Gujarat in 2002. "These incidents were created by politics and not by the common people," he said. Turning to India's nuclear neighbour Pakistan, Akbar said that the country in its creation was "wrenched out of the Indian union". He said that while India's creation marked the collapse of the British Empire, Pakistan's creation marked the defeat of India and the creation Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, in 1971 marked the defeat of Pakistan. "Sixty years have past and history will judge which idea was survived and which will have slumped," he said.As in the days of Noah....
