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The following is research published today from MEMRI’s Special Dispatch Series and the MEMRI TV Project.   Special Dispatch No. 3770—Palestinians Palestinian Legislative Council Deputy Speaker and Hamas Senior Official: The Revolutions in the Arab World – A Prelude to an Islamic Caliphate In an interview with the Qatari daily Al-Raya, Ahmad Bahr, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and a senior official in Hamas, said that the 2008-2009 war in Gaza had been one of the causes of the revolutions in the Arab world. He added that these revolutions, against dictatorships that the West had installed in the Arab countries in order to plunder their resources, heralded the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. He also said that the opening of the Rafah border crossing and the lifting of the siege on Gaza in the wake of the Egyptian revolution would strengthen the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, and stressed that Hamas hopes to achieve a reconciliation agreement with Fatah that will be "far removed from" the Oslo Accords and the security coordination with Israel. To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5209.htm.   Special Dispatch No. 3769—South Asia Studies Project/India/Saudi Arabia Saudi Sheikh Al-Sudayyis, Imam of Grand Mosque in Mecca: Need for Islamic Social Order in India; Muslims Should 'Bring the Kashmiris Out of the Indian Despotism' In New Delhi, K. Rahman Khan, Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha (upper house of Indian parliament), hosted a banquet in honor of Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudayyis, the Imam of Mecca's Grand Mosque. Indian Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended, along with a host of lawmakers and politicians (Image courtesy: Arab News, Saudi Arabia, March 28, 2011) In March 2011, Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, took a five-day trip to India at the invitation of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (Assembly of Indian Islamic Scholars). He was invited to address a conference in Delhi on the life of Prophet Muhammad's companions, arriving in New Delhi on March 24 and leaving March 28, 2011. During the trip, he also visited Darul Uloom Deoband, the second-largest Islamic seminary in the world after Cairo's Al-Azhar University. Various Indian Muslim organizations held several public events at which the Saudi cleric addressed Muslim audiences; the organizations included Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Jamiat Ahle Hadees and the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) as well as the India Islamic Cultural Centre, a government-facilitated Islamic community center. On March 24, he was received at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi by Maulana Syed Arshad Madani, President of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind. On March 25, he was flown to Darul Uloom Deoband in the northern Uttar Pradesh state to deliver a lecture and lead prayers at the Rashidiya Mosque of Deoband. On March 26, Al-Sudayyis addressed the main event, the Azmat-e-Sahaba [Greatness of the Prophet's Companions] Conference, at the Ram Lila Grounds of Delhi. He also led prayers at the Jama Masjid, a 17th century mosque best known in India and built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan.   In the Indian capital, he visited the headquarters of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and addressed a gathering of Islamic scholars. He also laid the foundation stone for the Students' Islamic Center of the SIO, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Al-Sudayyis was also celebrated at the government level, with Indian Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and with ministers, lawmakers and leaders of political parties attending a banquet in his honor.  The banquet was hosted by K. Rahman Khan, deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha (the upper house of the Indian parliament). To read the full report, visit http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5208.htm.