A Dutch former far-right MP and right-hand man of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders has set tongues wagging in the Netherlands after revealing he has converted to Islam, news reports said Tuesday.
For years Joram van Klaveren fought a relentless campaign in the Lower House against Islam in the Netherlands as a lawmaker for Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV).
At the time, the “hardliner pleaded for banning the burqa and minarets, saying ‘we don’t want any Islam, or at least as little as possible in the Netherlands’,” the daily tabloid Algemeen Dagblad (AD) said.
But the 40-year-old Van Klaveren said he had changed his mind halfway through writing an anti-Islam book.
“If everything I wrote up to that point is true, and I believe that, then I am a de facto Muslim,” he said.
Van Klaveren converted to Islam on October 26 last year, the NRC said in an interview piece ahead of the release of Van Klaveren’s book titled an ‘Apostate: From Christianity to Islam in the Time of Secular Terror.’
The former politician who grew up in an orthodox Protestant Christian environment said of his conversion that he “has been searching for a long time.”
“It feels a bit like a religious homecoming for me,” he told Dutch newspapers.
“His conversion has surprised both friend and enemy,” the AD newspaper said.
Van Klaveren split with Wilders in 2014 after the PVV leader’s controversial comments that year when asking supporters whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans in your city and the Netherlands”.
Bollywood actors Sidharth Malhotra and Aditya Roy Kapoor appeared on the latest episode of 'Koffee with Karan' and opened up about all, including their breakups.
As the show began, host Karan Johar launched straight into questions about Sidharth and Aditya's dating life.
Karan asked Aditya that while it was common knowledge that he dated co-actor Shraddha Kapoor, if rumours of him dating Parineeti Chopra were true. Aditya said he hasn’t dated Shraddha either but after Karan refused to believe him the actor gave a slight confirmation.
The host then turned to Sidharth and asked him about his ex Alia Bhatt and how things are between the two of them since their breakup. “We haven’t met after it. Our relationship is civil... I don’t think it’s bitter. It’s been a while. I have known her for much longer even before we dated. I gave my first ever shot with her in SOTY so there is so much history,” he said.
Karan asked him if it's tough to remove the emotional dynamic they shared and move forward professionally. To this, Sidharth said, “There is a reason why two people decide not to be together. There were lots of ups and downs. When you take yourself from a situation, you look at all the happy and good memories.”
During the rapid fire round, Aditya joked that he found neither Shraddha nor Parineeti talented and said it would be fun to work with Shraddha’s father Shakti Kapoor. Regarding who he would set up with Parineeti Chopra, Aditya named Arjun Kapoor.
When asked which of Aditya’s exes he would like to date, Sidharth said Shraddha and that he would set up Alia with Aditya. Respnding to another question, Sidharth said he would like Saif Ali Khan to be his brother and Kareena Kapoor Khan as his wife.
Years after her passing, late Princess of Wales, Diana, has been in the headlines for both right and wrong reasons. Be it her lavish Royal wedding to Prince Charles, her struggles settling into the British monarchs, or how she longed to break free from the quintessential royal norms.
However, what the world talked about most was her crumbling marriage that inevitably resulted in her speculated affair with Pakistani doctor, Hasnat Khan. The Princess wanted to marry him and was ready to leave Britain, according to her close friend and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s former wife, Jemima Goldsmith.
In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, titled “The Grandmother Prince George Never Knew”, Jemima spilled beans on how Diana was head over heels for Hasnat, a heart surgeon in the UK.
Contrary to her other ‘affairs’, the one with Hasnat wasn’t much publicised. Jemima told the magazine, “Diana was madly in love with Hasnat Khan and wanted to marry him, even if that meant living in Pakistan, and that’s one of the reasons why we became friends.”
She went on, “She wanted to know how hard it had been for me to adapt to life in Pakistan.” Diana turned to Jemima for advice in reference to the latter’s own marriage with a Pakistani man, which made her move to Pakistan.
According to Jemima, Diana would often consult her about living in Pakistan when she paid visits to the country. The PM’s ex-wife also stated that Diana visited her twice in Pakistan.
“Diana went to Pakistan to help raise funds for Imran’s hospital, but both times she also went to meet his family secretly to discuss the possibility of marriage to Hasnat.”
Sarah Ellison, Vanity Fair’s contributing editor claimed, “Princess Diana was reportedly in a relationship with Hasnat Khan from 1995 to 1997. Diana and Hasnat wanted to get married but the latter’s mother never gave approval. The princess had told two of her friends that she wanted a daughter with him.”
Friends tell Ellison that Diana made a point to get to know Hasnat’s family, specifically seeking the approval of his mother, Naheed.
“For a son to marry an English girl is every conservative Pashtun mother’s worst nightmare,” Jemima told Ellison. “You send your son to be educated in England and he comes back with an English bride. It’s something they dread.”
But according to Ellison, Hasnat’s decision to not marry Diana may have been the “greatest” gift to the princess.
Ellison spoke to some of Diana’s friends who insisted that she had broken off the relationship out of frustration that Hasnat wasn’t agreeing to marry her, or even make their relationship public. Jemima added, “He hated the thought of being in the glare of publicity for the rest of his life.”
“Everybody sells me out,” Diana told a friend the summer of her death, stated Ellison. “Hasnat is the one person who will never sell me out.”
As her love affair with the doctor ended, Diana began a new relationship with Dodi Al Fayed. Diana and Dodi, the son of Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed, are said to have started their relationship soon after in the French Riviera.
The Princess’ divorce from Princes Charles was finalised in 1996. Soon after vacationing together, Diana and Dodi died in a high-speed car crash on August 31. She was just 36 while Dodi was 42.
A cleric mired in a slew of controversies remains in the headlines for bizarre reasons. Several amateur videos featuring the cleric, Mufti Abdul Qavi, with showbiz stars and internet celebs have gone viral on social media.
Mufti Qavi, who was formerly associated with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, first made headlines when he was shot in a selfie video with Qandeel Baloch, a model and social media celebrity who was later shot dead by her brother “in the name of honour”.
Mufti Qavi is an accused in the case because he had allegedly incited Qandeel’s brother to murder his sibling.
On Thursday, another video was shared hundreds of times on social networking websites which shows Mufti Qavi showering a female singer with currency notes at a wedding reception.
According to sources, the video was shot at the recent ‘Mehndi’ event of PTI South Punjab chapter Vice President Khalid Javed’s son.
Local singer Nadia Hashmi also performed at the reception. As Nadia started singing Bollywood song ‘Dil Diyan Gallan…,” Mufti Qavi sitting in the front row praised her performance and flung a stack of currency notes her way.
And social media went crazy. Users shared the amateur video several times with different comments.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Mufti Qavi said Islam was not a rigid religion, and allowed celebration according to local culture and traditions.
“For the happiness of the family, I enjoyed with them,” he said.
Such events, he added, were a part of the culture of the sub-continent, and did not put Islam in danger.
Earlier, another video featuring Mufti Qavi with a transgender person apparently in a shopping mall also went viral on social media. The video clip shows the transgender person flirtatiously touching the cleric’s shoulder with her chin.
