Katmandu, Rajab 17/Oct 14 (IINA) - Muslims of Nepal speak the Urdu language, and they constitute eight percent of the total population of 14,000,000, . The majority of the Muslims live in the mountainous areas adjacent to the border with India, but their economic situation leaves much to be desired. They are not involved in any commercial or industrial undertakings, and the majority of them are either unskilled labourers or small-scale subsistence farmers, with a sprinkling of some lower-level civil servants.

Thus ignorance and backwardness are rampant among Nepalese Muslims, and this had led to their forfeiture of their human rights in the country.

Even in the faith that they profess, their knowledge of Islamic principles and culture is very meager, and they do need guidance and direction in this respect. Many of them are Muslims in name only, but hardly know anything else about Islam.

In the capital, Katmandu, which is situated in the middle of a mountainous area, there are four mosques, though there also are Islamic schools, such as the Jankbur Daham School, which was set up in 1386 AH in that city. It is used as a center for producing Da’awa activists, as Islamic education and the teaching of the Arabic language are not allowed in government schools.

The Muslims of Nepal are not given the right to practice Islamic personal law, because there are no such laws in the country, though Islam dawned on it in the fifth century of the Hijri calendar, according to existing historical records. It was Arab and Muslim traders who introduced Islam to Nepal.

Sheikh Muhammad Nassir Al-Abboudy, Assistant Secretary General of the Makkah-based Muslim World League (MWL) said that the Muslims of Nepal are incapable of combating their backwardness in social, economic, and political matters, nor are they capable of confronting the missionary activities and their enticements. The missionaries have been able to open schools, clinics, libraries, and other facilities, including cash disbursements. They even send some of the Nepalese converts to their seminaries in Europe and the US, so as to brainwash them even more.

Even Jews, the Chinese, and Indians have their schools, libraries, clinics and other facilities, for their own political agenda and influence.

Nepalese Muslims do, however, get help from such countries as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in the form of scholarships to those who wish to study at the universities of the two countries.