BAN NUA'S COMMUNITY VISITS ISDEV

Parts of the Ban Nua's community and ISDEV fraternity

Today, Tuesday 23rd October 2012, 90 delegates from Ban Nua, Thailand, led by Dr Tobrani, visited ISDEV.

Dr Tobrani leads his community to develop a self-reliant independent Ban Nua (Nua Village, located north of Hatyai) based on Quranic verse that instructs the observation of solah and the payment of zakah. Though initially a poor community with members mostly working as fishermen, the Ban Nua community now becomes the zakat payer (muzakki) rather than the zakat receiver (asnaf). Uniting under the congregation of prayers, the community now owns an active co-operative, school, et. cetera, emerging as an exemplary Islamic independent and self-contained village, endeavoured via a bottom-up grassroots approach.

L-R: Dr Muhammad Ilyas (ISDEV Post-Doctoral Fellow from International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan), Dr Tobrani and myself

Two ISDEV Master students are now researching on Ban Nua's co-operative and zakat efforts. On the 7th till the 9th of December 2012, ISDEV fraternity plans to pay a visit to Ban Nua, after visiting the community for the first time last year. ISDEV is identifying possible aids for Ban Nua's development, particularly on health, computerisation of the co-operative and zakat management, and Islamic entertainment culture such as nasyid, InshaAllah. This is one of ISDEV's bottom billion engagement.

THE OLDER THE BUSIER?

Life at 58 seems to be much busier than before. Since the last post on my 58th birthday, the present is my first post - after almost three months of silence. I was away from office almost every week. At some places, the internet signal was weak or almost none, while at others where there was strong signal, my schedules were tight. The only records that I have are the photos, which hopefully can be downloaded here sometimes, InshaAllah.