Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi says At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan launched an at­tack on Mus­lims and Arabs in the Sen­ate on Wednes­day.Al-Rawi called a news con­fer­ence at his law of­fice in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day to ex­press his dis­ap­point­ment.He said the AG's at­tack was made when Ram­lo­gan com­ment­ed on a News­day sto­ry, pub­lished in 2010, in which Al-Rawi said he was a de­scen­dent of the Prophet Muhammed.

Al-Rawi yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed a cer­ti­fied fam­i­ly tree, which he said was ev­i­dence to con­firm his claim and said he was thank­ful to his fa­ther "for giv­ing me the proof."You could write to the Iraqi Gov­ern­ment. I can vouch that it is 1,000 per cent cor­rect," he said.He added that the doc­u­ment "means noth­ing to me oth­er than the fact that I know where I come from."Nev­er­the­less, Al-Rawi said Ram­lo­gan "made deroga­to­ry re­marks and I con­demn his be­hav­iour in the Par­lia­ment. I think he was mak­ing a di­rect at­tack against Mus­lims and as against me as a de­scen­dant of an Arab and an In­di­an moth­er."

Al-Rawi's fa­ther is Husam Al-Rawi, an Iraqi ar­chi­tect and aca­d­e­m­ic. Al-Rawi was born in Trinidad and his moth­er is for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Di­ane Seuk­er­an.In the 2010 sto­ry he was quot­ed as say­ing: "We are de­scend­ed from the Prophet Muhammed, my 43rd grand­fa­ther di­rect­ly."In re­sponse to ques­tions yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi said Ram­lo­gan had told him off the Par­lia­ment floor on Wednes­day: "Boy, Faris you got me vex and I had to re­spond."Al-Rawi said he, in turn, said: "Well, Anand, the least you could do is to be truth­ful."He said Ram­lo­gan's state­ment was pet­ty, cheap and non­sen­si­cal but Ram­lo­gan was a non-is­sue and he was not in­ter­est­ed in an apol­o­gy from him."Why would I ask for an apol­o­gy from a man who had so many op­por­tu­ni­ties to apol­o­gise in Par­lia­ment? That would be throw­ing pearls to swine and I am not in­ter­est­ed in that," he said.

The AG may have made the at­tack on him, he said, be­cause he "took ex­cep­tion to the man­ner in which I dealt with his de­bate (pre­sen­ta­tion)."He said he told the AG then that he had presided over the worst set of leg­is­la­tion brought to the Par­lia­ment.Al-Rawi said there were many more im­por­tant mat­ters to be ad­dressed by the Gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing the crime prob­lem and the so-called stand-off be­tween the army and the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

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The Darul Uloom T&T says it can­not ac­cept Al-Rawi's claim un­til it sees the proof.Mufti Waseem Khan said yes­ter­day fur­ther com­ment would be made on­ly af­ter ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed.He added that some­one's claim "to be­ing re­lat­ed to Prophet Muham­mad has no spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance in Is­lam. It is all about the in­di­vid­ual him­self... his faith and prac­tice is what mat­ters."He added: "If one stud­ies the his­to­ry of prophets and their de­scen­dants, one will see that there were many from among their de­scen­dants who were trans­gres­sors, un­right­eous peo­ple, and an­tag­o­nists to the teach­ings of the prophets from whose lin­eage they came.

"This, how­ev­er, had no ef­fect on the truth­ful­ness of the prophet's teach­ings, nor did it have a bear­ing on the sound­ness of the re­li­gion which came through a prophet." (See Page A10)