India’s Communal Gamble

Dear Harimau, you wrote:

[In asking for a Muslim leader to lead the Muslims of India to their former glory, could you not have chosen to ask for someone who has not been a scourge to the Hindus?]

I will contest your view that the leaders I chose were scourges to Hindus. They were all practising, pious, Sunni Muslims. Some amongst them, like Aurangzeb Alamgir are considered wali e kaamil [perfect sufi saints, friends of God] by us. I did not choose them because they (supposedly) were bad to Hindus but because they ruled according to Shar`iat. I think Muhammad Tughluq was another such ruler.WE can argue about different versions of history for ever....:-)

[I know you are a pious Muslim. I know you take to heart the Holy Quran. Clearly, you have the sense to interpret those verses that call for destruction of the idolaters in the context of the times and to take to heart those passages that call for tolerance.]

I am not calling for the destruction of the idolators. Neither does the Qur`an call for the destruction of unbelievers [except when they are the aggressors in a war]. I fully believe that orthodox Islam is a tolerant faith.

[Don`t you think what anybody, not just Muslims, needs in this day and age is modern scientific education that will lead to their upliftment? Don`t you think what we need is 10,000 people who will create the next 10,000 Aligarh Muslim Universities? Isn`t it your scientific education that has enabled you to move freely to the West and participate in the general economic progress? Has that actually prevented you from being a good Muslim? Would a modern education actually prevent an ordinary Muslim from being a religious person in his personal life?]

I agree with you totally here. Except that Aligarh is not a good example; their interpretation of Islam is ``modernist`` and not classical. Universities which combine modern science with classical islamic teachings are what are needed most.

[I know you think deeply about the issues of Muslims in India. I am offering these suggestions to you for you to reflect on them. I know that you will agree with me that when all people put their religion in their personal sphere and socially interact as equals, we will all advance together.]

I thank you for your advice. I agree totally with you that Muslims desperately need scientific education but this does NOT have to mean abandoning traditional islamic thinking or doctrines. In other words we should learn science but not scientism--the belief that science has the answer to all our questions alone. As a practising scientist I reject that view totally.

Hope that makes sense to you...:-)

Zafar bhaiyya,

You are right. We did have that discussion on another board. I merely relayed the traditional Sunni belief about Allah`s Messenger alayhisalatosalam. If you do not wish to discuss it is up to you and your right :-) I will though say that as a Muslim it is our duty to find out as much as possible about the beautiful life about Our Beautiful Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam. When you know about their [i.e. Allah`s Habib (I use ``their`` as a plural of respect)life you will love them. And a person cannot be a perfect momin until he loves Allah`s Messenger more than anything else including his own self! (sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam). That is why I recommend you (and everyone else) read the following two books on Allah`s Messenger`s blessed life (peace be upon him and his family):

1. Muhammad (sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam): His Life based on the Earliest Sources --by Martin Lings.

2. Muhammad Messenger of Allah (Ash-Shifa of Qadi `Iyad) (sal Allahu alayhiwasallam) -translated by Aisha Bewley.

And if you can read Urdu:

1. Zikr-e-Jameel by Hazrat Muhammad Shafi Okarvi.

2. Zia un-Nabi sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam by Hazrat Pir Muhammad Karam Shah al Azhari (rahmatullah alayhi) (7 volume masterpiece of seerah writing).

If you -or anyone else-- wants to read about the Blessed Prophet (peace be upon him) in the Qur`an Sharif the best book, in Urdu, is ``Shaan Habibur Rahman Min Aayaatul Qur`an`` by Hazrat Mufti Ahmad Yaar Khan Na`eemi (rahmatullah alayhi).

If you just read ONE book then the one by Aisha Bewley above in English is the one you should read. Available from amazon.com.

:-)

wa salam

Eklavya #364:

``Long ago (that is when I still had all my teeth) when I had never travelled out of U.P., I could not understand how anyone could be an Indian and not know Hindi. Now I can not look back on the stupidity and bigotry of that boy without feeling a sense of shame. Luckily, in India that in-your-face, aggressive, south-baiting Hindi hegemonism is almost dead. If it was not, I would openly and strongly oppose it.``

Well said. Sadly, there are still a lot of people who equate knowledge of Hindi with patriotism and a lack of knowledge as otherwise. Even sadder is that a lot of people want a single culture for India, even for Hindus, ignoring the fact that there are several vibrant `cultures` (and religions) in India that have developed over centuries.

Having lived in both North and South India, I find there is an apalling ignorance of the `other`. I have come across many (otherwise) well educated N Indians who cannot name the Southern states, who (to give a trivial example) think Bollywood = Indian cinema (not realising that Tamil cinema alone produces more movies per year than Bollywood) etc. Similarly, I have seen many South Indians for whom the rest of India is one homogenous `Hindi speaking` entity.

If I had a choice, every school student would spend one year in the opposite end of India (and that includes the North East too) and learn the local language.

``Pakistan is a great country.``

Come again?

Rsaxena #358 ``the intellectual sewers of the modern world.``

Just like your posts are the intellectual sewers of chowk (along with your other smelly buddies and the nutcase Jay).

re shah 362

The post makes no sense whatsover. Bengalis and Tamils are anti-Urdu? I am non-Urdu speaking? What does all of this have anything to do with the questions posed to your earlier?

Urdu-Muslims? What on earth is that? I suggest you re-read the Holy Prophet`s last sermon about distinguishing between people in that manner.

RSaxena # 352

``What`s wrong with saying the ``will of the nation?`` How is that related to religion?``

The ``Will of the nation`` pertains to the building

of a Ram temple, on a disputed site, which is sub judice.Ram`s temple will be used for his pooja by his followers.I hope you are aware of the fact that pooja is a part of Hindu Dharama.Do you see the relation to the religion?

Regards.

Reply Hobbyty # 306

Hobbyty

[“Secularism is an example of modernization (a response to increasing complexity), in which differentiation of religion from economic and political institutions. THIS DIFFERNTIATION CAN ALSO APPLY TO THE SEPERATIONOF RELIGION FROM CULTURE AND CONSCIENCE. Therefore there can be two meaning of secularism or alternately we can view it as a dichotomy of Objective versus Subjective secularism. On a psychological and cultural level, what was once sacred both in the psychological and in the cultural sense is now open to the profane.” ]

True – in a secular society there is no way to ENFORCE sacredness. Either an individual feels something is sacred, or they do not, and there is no way to force them. This seems like a good thing to me.

[“Within The realm of Subjective secularism, you have profanation, resulting in the diminishment of religion as a cultural and moral force. Subjective secularism acts to decimate religion, not by demystifying it or rationalizing it, but by infiltrating the sacred psycho-social terrain in the individual conscience and within society as a whole.”]

You mean morality is perceived as no longer being defined, or limited, by any particular religious tradition or belief, but by social consensus (sp?). I think that this has always been true to some extent – although morality usually has hidden in religion. (For example, so many customs have hidden in Islam and are perceived as Islamic which are actually just social mores….)

I don’t see such a clear line between the subjective/objective secularism.

[“Consider your statement about the reawakening, revival: You question whether it was the right thing to do or happen. In other words, Subjective secularism gives to itself the right to decide the validity of individual conscience.”]

Nahin bhaiya, Subjective Secularism tho kahin golf khel raha thha. It wasn’t him. Mathlab, that was MY opinion.

[“ You begin with the presumption that religious awakening/revival has a purpose other than what the adherent has judged to be true or correct for that adherent’s conscience. Your analysis begins with “look at the results”, which you then explain – as opposed to “look at the reason for the revival”, that is to say the individual conscience.”]

An individual’s religious “purpose” or “need” are personal, and should affect nobody but him or her. It’s nobody else’s business. It’s the outcomes that the rest of society has to deal with – and in the case of Yugoslavia, the outcomes which had to be dealt with included ethnic cleansing and murder. I very much doubt (and again, this is MHO, not SS’s) that religious revival in Yugoslavia resulted in better human beings (Orthodox, Catholic or Muslim). If you think that it did, I’d be interested in knowing why.

[“Opium of the masses”? really? well, why then is religion so strong in the US?]

Look at US social welfare policies. Besides – where else but church/mosque/synagogue/temple do people make business deals or (traditionally) demonstrate that they are advancing economically (from the Southern Baptists to Methodists to Episcopalians)?

[“Moreover, what does such an attitude say about the role of the individual conscience? Do people not ask “Who am I? “What does my life mean?” “Am I part of some greater design?” – Now, this is for the individual conscience to decide, not for those who reject the very validity of that conscience. It is the opposite of tolerance; It appropriates a civic morality that denies to any other the right to an individual conscience. The key lies in whether or not one is willing to acknowledge that peoples practice their faith, because they need the spiritual uplift of their faith, after all, what happened to Tolerance being the foundation of civil society?”]

On the contrary. Secularism respects EVERYBODY’S right to conscience re: matters spiritual. What it also does, however, is state that your right to religious freedom stops when it starts impinging on the rights (religious and otherwise) of others. That’s why religious organisations loathe secularism – it stops them from bullying people in the name of God.

[“Now look at your last statement: “The revival of religiously based identities is a reaction to change – fear of change if you will.”…”OK, that’s one answer, but why would anyone want to assign a value judgement to such a response? To what next will the Subjective secularists take objection to and which other groups of persons will they make decisions for?”]

Hey – I can object to anything I like. But where am I making a decision for anybody else? Objective Secularism doesn’t mean I can’t call something wrong or evil if that is my opinion. I can condemn bubble gum all I want, so long as I don’t interfere with your right to chew it.

Zafar

Reply Sadna # 308

“When this happens I put in my request for a few hard kicks to the whining Sanghis/Jamaatis? backsides.”

Voh tho aap yahan kar chuke, Mashallah.

Reply Asif Naqshbandi # 313

Dear Asif

“I cannot recall having written any thing about the Blessed Prophet alayhisalatosalaam`s anatomy mubarak which you refer too; I would NEVER write about that for fear of disrespect. I think I did write about the imaan of the blessed parents of the Beloved Prophet alayhisalaam--in fact, if I recall all I did was paste an article which gave the orthodox Sunni view on this matter of aqeedah.”

I cannot recall which board this was on, but I do recall reading a post (or series of posts) discussing whether the Prophet was born circumcised, and also which mentioned the Prophet’s parents being raised from the dead in order to convert to Islam. If you did not posts these things, excuse me, I have mistaken you for somebody else.

If you did post them, please note: I have no negative or positive comments to make on these beliefs. My point to Satyavadi was that I do not have any wish or interest in discussing them beyond that past interaction. I fully respect the right of other people to do so whenever and wherever they wish, but I do feel that involving myself in these discussions un-necessarily would be wasting these people’s time.

Best wishes,

Zafar

Reply RSaxena # 309

“I know I`m not supposed to like this Bukhari fellow but I can`t help but give him an ear when goes on tirades against Pakistani terrorism in Kashmir. At least one part of his brain, no matter how small, must be working. No? Or do you think he and the BJP have struck a deal where they don`t bother him when he goes on tirades against the US (and for Taliban) as long as he goes on tirades against Pakistan?”

How can he sincerely oppose jihad in Kashmir and then turn around and call for jihad in Afghanistan? He is entirely self-serving and opportunistic, and in my considered opinion, an odious little toad.

Re:sadna #340

reason #335

Do you know anything about Syed Shahabuddin and his various stands? He is an ex-IFS topper(I heard) and is a talented man I think (with a talented family, too). I have not followed him closely, recently he was one of the leaders who protested the banning of SIMI.

firstly , i am sorry i did not understand the link between my post and your reply .

i know of Syed Shahabuddin and i do not know if you are aware that he was brought into politics by our own PM AB Vajpayee. No wonder he is one of the reasons for the rise of the BJP :-)

``18 Christians shot dead in Pak church``

Looks like Bajarang Dal has a branch in Pakistan too.

Shah,

Do you think ``urdu is Pakistan, Pakistan is urdu approach`` had something to do with the break up of Pakistan?

Long ago (that is when I still had all my teeth) when I had never travelled out of U.P., I could not understand how anyone could be an Indian and not know Hindi. Now I can not look back on the stupidity and bigotry of that boy without feeling a sense of shame. Luckily, in India that in-your-face, aggressive, south-baiting Hindi hegemonism is almost dead. If it was not, I would openly and strongly oppose it.

Pakistan is a great country. Please share it equally with those whose mother tongue is not Urdu. The same is the case with Islam. These are all different concepts. They have different defintions, different domains of meaning, and follow different evolutionary logics. Mixing them up demeans them.

Religion not important to Hindus? LOL...I wish it was less important, Shah. The only difference is that a great many Hindus (and Muslims) have decided to read their holy books with a new set of eyes.

Regards.

Ref Asif Naqshbandi #: 312

[It is funny how my prayer--which just asked Allah to remove the chains of slavery from the Muslims of India and restore them to their former glory and for each Muslim child to have pride in his Muslim ancestors and to renew in them the fervour of their past--so upset a few hindus on here.I said nothing bad against anyone in that humble little prayer.

It seems even praying for the revival of Muslims in India really rattles certain Hindus! Talk about hatred....!

Janab Naqshbandi Sahib,

In asking for a Muslim leader to lead the Muslims of India to their former glory, could you not have chosen to ask for someone who has not been a scourge to the Hindus?

I know you are a pious Muslim. I know you take to heart the Holy Quran. Clearly, you have the sense to interpret those verses that call for destruction of the idolaters in the context of the times and to take to heart those passages that call for tolerance.

Don`t you think what anybody, not just Muslims, needs in this day and age is modern scientific education that will lead to their upliftment? Don`t you think what we need is 10,000 people who will create the next 10,000 Aligarh Muslim Universities? Isn`t it your scientific education that has enabled you to move freely to the West and participate in the general economic progress? Has that actually prevented you from being a good Muslim? Would a modern education actually prevent an ordinary Muslim from being a religious person in his personal life?

I know you think deeply about the issues of Muslims in India. I am offering these suggestions to you for you to reflect on them. I know that you will agree with me that when all people put their religion in their personal sphere and socially interact as equals, we will all advance together.

Regards.

Re:Reply #: 348

Shah

``Pakistan was made not b/c muslims couldnt earn there living in undivided India ,it was total control on all aspect of muslims language ,dreass

,islamiyat,own destiny ,observent life ,...etc.``

Can you furnish any proof of your above statement? This kind of thing is no doubt being taught in madrasas in Pakistan. Did you by chance get your education in one of them? A simple way to disprove your assertion is to look at Indian muslims of today. These are the people who chose to stay back. They have not lost their islamiyat, language (Urdu press in India is second only to English in terms of number of dailies published), dress or their culture for that matter.

``Urdu is the pakistans national language how many of your thses gentle men know Urdu & schooled in Islamiyat.??``.

Again, if Urdu is Pakistan`s national language, why should muslims like Abdul Kalam or Azim Premji know this language. Abdul Kalam, for your information is fluent in Tamil and writes poetry in that language. He is also a sanskrit scholar. Since he did not get his education from a madrasaa, he does not equate language with religion. Do i become more muslim if i know Urdu? Am i a Pundit only if i know sanskrit? What kind of contorted logic is this?

Sorry for butting in but i hope i have set the records straight and you have learned something in the process. Do not forget, Munshi Premchand was fluent in Urdu as Ras Khan was in Hindi.

Sridhar

Re: Jilani`s article

While people in this forum are debating the status of minorities in their respective countries, here is an article from Amina Jilani in Jung.

``A State of Denial

Amina Jilani

It is high time that the members of that amorphous community known as the Ummah, which makes vain attempts to trumpet its unity whilst agreeing to remain fractured, and hostile to one another, indulged in a bit of introspection.

In the aftermath of the September happening the Muslim nations have been either moaning and groaning, or they have been up in arms burning effigies and hurling violent abuse at the Great White Satans of this startled world. The cause of their ire or their self-pity is Afghanistan and its people. However, no humantarian aid of any sort from any Muslim state is flowing into that unhappy country to help its refugees and its widows and orphans for whose plight so many breasts are being beaten. The support from the Muslim world boils down to mere rhetoric with nothing behind it, except in the case of Pakistan which is reluctantly being overrun and forced to provide shelter, no matter how crude or rude.

For over a decade Afghanistan has been in a state of turmoil and civil war inflicted by Muslim upon Muslim. The Muslim people of Afghanistan have been murdered and pillaged by the Muslim Mujahadeen and then bludgeoned into submission by the Muslim Taliban whilst being at the same time starved and killed by drought. Where then were the other Muslim states? Those now jumping up and down were either silent observers, quite content to stand by and watch the atrocities of the Mujahadeen and the Taliban or, as with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, active participants in the interests of its own ‘strategic depth’.

Pakistan’s great Islamists (though divorced from the true faith) are now erupting in self-righteous violent fury over the doings of the Infidels. It seems that if Muslim hits, maims or kills Muslim, that’s fine, but let the infidel step in, having been a victim of terrorism with obvious Islamic connections, and things are quite different. When the alleged perpetrators claim their acts of terrorism are sanctioned by Islamic values few Islamic voices are raised in protest.

The good Muslim activists remain silent when the Taliban attack and sack the Western humanitarian relief agencies and seize food meant for the desperate civilian population. They remain silent when the Taliban steal equipment, supplies and vehicles from the relief agencies and thus hamper their ability to give relief? And last week brought rumors in the press that there are fears the Taliban may try to poison humanitarian food stuff being distributed to starving Afghan civilians and then blame the act on the Americans. This is not impossible, and should it happen how many ardent Muslims will protest?

There is a wealth of hypocrisy along the way. Muslims are up in arms against discriminatory practices in non-Islamic countries but are silent on discriminatory practices in Islamic states. For instance, Saddam Hussain is quite justified in killing Kurds; the Gulf states can base their laws and even salaries on ethnic origins and no Muslim will protest that this is a racist practise; Palestinian refugees can become citizens of the United States, but no Muslim state other than Jordan is prepared to grant them this facility though all the Muslim states pledge their undying support for the Palestine cause, and weep and wail over the plight of the Palestinians, and vow to fight to the death for their right to a homeland. The list is long.

At their recent meeting in Qatar the Organisation of the Islamic Conference refused to accept any responsibility for the September terrorist attack. Not one member wishes to take the lead in tackling the problem, or even talking about it, though terrorism is endemic to the Muslim world. Take Pakistan and its marauding groups of fanatics such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Sipah-e-Muhammad, with which we here are all too familiar, who have been allowed to spread terror throughout the country. In Egypt, the Islamic Jihad and the Gama-e-Islami kill and destroy and make miserable the lives of their fellow Muslims. In the far off Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf band, supposedly fighting for liberation, are busy killing their fellow Muslims. There are few Muslim countries not terrorised by terrorism, and the worldwide victims of terrorism more often than not are Muslim victims of Muslim terrorists, particularly in such brutalised places as Palestine and Chechnya.

But, wallowing in a state of denial, the Muslim countries refuse to admit that terrorism is an internal problem. They shrug off all blame, and lay it at the doorsteps of the Western world, or the CIA, the Mossad, the Indians, the Jews. They are paranoiac, seeing conspiracies against them everywhere but in their own front yards.

What the Muslim world should now ask itself is how, in this day and age, it has spawned an Osama Bin Laden? And how, in the year 2001, is that man now transformed into a role model for millions of Muslim youth, both uneducated and educated, to emulate? Something is very wrong in the kingdom of Islam. Against all the tenets and teachings of Islam, it has allowed itself to be hijacked by a bunch of semi-literate demagogues, who practice a fanatic militancy geared to violence, combined with an illiberal repressive brand of fundamentalism. Enough is surely enough.

Here in Pakistan, we should not grudge the man who now heads this country any seat he may wish to sit in, any hat he may wish to wear, if he can somehow drag it into the 21st century and get it going on a path, no matter how rutted, towards progress. His volte face on the ‘national interest’ may well prove to be Pakistan’s saving grace.

But President General Pervez Musharraf, despite his act of support to the coalition, may not get it all his own way. He wants a government dominated by ‘moderate’ Talibans (this is like talking about ‘moderate’ Nazis in 1945). Last week, US Secretary of State General Colin Powell made it quite clear: “The next government of Afghanistan cannot be dictated into existence by Pakistan or any of the other neighbours. It has to be an internationally blessed process, and it has to involve the UN, and it has to involve all the Afghan people, not just who (Pakistan) might favour at a particular moment to put into power in Kabul.”

So much for Musharraf’s strategic depth. And another of his recommendations has been shot down. Colin Powell also has insisted that US forces will not limit their strikes on Afghanistan to the period before the start of the month of Ramadan. Action will continue until the objectives are reached, even though the US is ‘sensitive to Ramadan’.

An afterthought: Would it not be far more becoming to our President General and the image he presents to the world were he, since he feels the compulsion to dye his hair, to seek professional help so that he does appear before his international audiences as if wearing a chestnut skull cap atop a naturally graying head? Or better still, just go gray as nature dictates.``

What blew my mind away was the news that not one muslim country is sending any humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. What are the oil-Sheikhs upto? Busy with their wives in the harem, no doubt. No Palestinian can become a citizen of any muslim country except Jordan? Wow, that is some news. Why all this sympathy for Palenstinians then if no one is helping them in concrete terms.

Time for introspection by the so called muslim Ummah.

Sridhar

re romair 350

You`re giving only a partial picture of the countries under review. For starters, Turkey and ALgeria restrict Islamist politics because the Islamist version of democracy is `one man, one vote, one time`- an anthema to true democratic practise. Those bleeding heart Western HR activists did not believe this and kept on bedgering the late Shahenshah for being repressive and anti-democratic. Well, the `democracy` that replaced the His Majesty makes Imperial Iran look like a kindergarten for repressive regimes. Algeria acted swiftly to counter this kind of `revolution` prior to the second round of elections.

As for Turkey, she is model worth emulating. Mullahs have been predicting her demise as a political/economic force ever since the Ataturk demolished the last edifices of sixth century obscurantism. Yet, Turkey has survived, has an economy better than almost all other non-petro Muslim countries, and is steadily heading towards full integration with EU. Yes her democracy is not perfect and her HR record is spotty for which she comes in under scolding from the other Europeans. But as her Interior Minister told an EU meet not too long ago, `if Belgians or Danes had Iran, Iraq and Syria for neighbors, they wouldn`t be such do-gooder liberal bleeding hearts as they are today`. In our lifetimes, Turkey will become a full fledged democracy with all the ingredients of a modern civilized society. Then the mullahs can harp about something else.

The same `democracy` argument is used in Bangladesh by those who support Islamist outfits like Jamaat and IOJ. My answer is that everybody ought to be able to do politics and run in elections in a free country like Bangladesh. PROVIDED that all parties and contestants publicly affirm their allegiance to the Constitution of the Republic which reposes sovereignty in the people excersized through their Parliament. This stuff about ``God`s sovereignty`` and Nizaam-e-Mohammadi is incompatible with the Constitution.