MUSLIMS AND TERRORISM
Asghar Ali Engineer
(Secular Perspective March
16-31-2006)
The bomb explosion in the Sankatmochan temple and Varanasi railway station on
8th March once again has shaken the country. These criminals against
humanity often invoke Islam for their dirty criminal deeds and assume Arabic
sounding names and call themselves ‘mujahids’ to pass
their misdeeds as an act of jihad. It can deceived no
one and least of all Muslims. In fact these terrorists have their own political
agenda and to promote this agenda they do not mind disgracing fair name of
Islam. If we doubt anything it is their Islam. Either consciously or
unconsciously they are promoting the agenda of enemies of Islam. The repeated
acts of terrorism on their part have indeed done great damage to image of
Islam.
No religion promotes violence
and any religion, which does, cannot qualify for being a religion. All
religions lay great stress on non-violence and peace be it Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Janinism or Sikkhism. And for
Islam peace is most central. Allah, whom Muslims worship as the only God, His
one of the names is Peace and thus worshipping Allah means worshipping peace.
Any Muslim who causes hurt or injury to any other human being without
justification should be punished in equal measure.
The Qur’an
clearly says in verse 5:32 “…whosoever kills
a person unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he had killed entire humanity. And
whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire humanity.” Such
is the sanctity of life in the eyes of Allah. Thus these so called ‘mujahidin’ are openly defying the injunctions of the Qur’an and slaughtering innocent people in places of
worship. Even under the rules of jihad (although the Qur’an
does not use the word jihad for war even once) the holy Prophet required
Muslims not to kill any non-combatant or women or children or destroy any
property or standing crops in the field.
These so called jihadis defy every rule of the shari’ah.
How can then they be described as ‘holy warriors’? They are nothing more than
murderers. If they are killing for revenge then that is also not considered a
praiseworthy act in Islam. Allah is repeatedly described by the Qur’an as Ghafoor al-Rahim i.e. the Pardoner and Compassionate. Then how can those who worship a pardoning and compassionate God will
kill innocent people as they often do in the name of jihad?
All this clearly shows that
what these various terrorist organisations do in the name of jihad is far from
any religious act. No one can accept indiscriminate acts of violence as
integral part of religion. All such acts should be strongly condemned.
It is a matter of pride that
generally Indian Muslims are not involved in such acts of terrorism nor are
they part of Al-Qaeda. However, there may be some exceptions. All such terror organisations
breed under authoritarian regime. Indian Islam is no purist nor is obsessed
with restoration of early days. It is product of a multi-religious ethos which were nurtured by Sufis whose universal doctrine has been sulh-i-kul i.e. total peace and peace with all.
Indian Islam has richly contributed to the composite culture. Apart from Sufis
even the traditional ‘ulama in India accepted secular
democracy and composite culture and did not support separatism. Jami’at al’Ulama played glorious
role in Indian independence and supported the Congress nationalism without any
reservation. Thus Indian Islam never supported extremism of any kind in the
name of Islam.
It is unfortunate that many
people in India do not understand this and after every such incident demand
proof of Muslim loyalty and want ‘moderate’ Muslims to condemn it as Muslims.
This is not in keeping with secular ethos. Why Indian Muslims should be
required to condemn such acts of terror as Muslims and not as Indians. Such an
attitude keeps us divided. The underlying assumption is that Muslims are not
part of national mainstream. It really irritates when such demand comes even
from otherwise secular people.
Also the word ‘moderate’
Muslim also conveys certain mindset. The underlying assumption is that all
other Muslims are ‘extremists’ and support such acts of terrorism whereas fact
is that overwhelming majority of Muslims are peace loving as demonstrated both
in Delhi in October and in Benaras when bombs
exploded in the Sankatmochan temple. The large number
of Muslims and Hindus showed great solidarity and frustrated the designs of
communalists to use the opportunity to provoke communal violence.
The Mufti of Benaras issued a statement
strongly condemning bomb explosion in the Sankatmochan
temple and on request from me issued a fatwa against the bomb explosion. Also
Muslim women took out a morcha
against the explosion and demanded strong punishment against the culprits.
Muslims also queued up for donating blood for the injured so much so that the
blood bank officials had to plead with Muslims that we cannot take more blood
as their capacity was no more. What better example of human solidarity?
The Hindu masses also
frustrated the political designs of communalists and did not express any support
for the yatra
announced by the BJP leader Shri
Lalkrishna Advani. BJP also demanded in
this hour of grave crisis dismissal of Mulayamsingh Yadav Ministry. This also did not go well with the masses
and they reacted against such politicising of a grave human problem. Instead of
sincerely helping the people affected by the tragedy they were busy playing
their politics.
Our politicians hardly ever
measure up to standards of democracy. They want to exploit every event for
their purposes. It is indeed politicising of every such events that creates
conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Left to themselves they will never fight.
If people were inclined to fight there would have been immediate outburst of
communal violence in Benaras. Despite efforts
by the communalists people refused to be provoked.
People have also learnt from
various communal conflicts that how communal politicians play with their
religious sentiments and make them fight. The BJP all along played
this game sometimes in the name of ‘psuedo-secularism’
and sometimes in the name of ‘appeasement of minorities’. Even Ram temple issue
no longer appeals to Hindus. The communal elements are at the end of tether.
The coming elections in U.P.
after few months, on the other hand, are making them restless and in view of
their lowest ever popularity are at their wits’ end as how to entice the Hindu
masses. Even their allies like JD(U) and Trinamul Congress are no more enthusiastic about various BJP’s plans. Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar has not approved
of Advani’s Yatra after the
Benaras bomb blasts and he
categorically said that he will not support it as and when it passes through Bihar. Nitish Kumar is busy wooing Muslims in Bihar. He has even
reopened communal riots cases of Bhagalpur.
Even Laluprasad
Yadav did not reopen these cases as he did not want
to displease his Yadav voters who were mainly
involved in Bhagalpur riots. Nitish Kumar, in order to woo Muslims away from Laluprasad is reopening these cases after sixteen years.
Thus though still allied to BJP he is clearly
cold-shouldering it. TDP has already broke away from
NDA after facing defeat in general elections in 2004. TDP lost elections in
Andhra Pradesh for aligning with the BJP.
Thus it is period of isolation
for the BJP. Its communal politics paid
dividends for sometime but it is finding it difficult to exploit communal
issues. If the BJP does not give up its
communal politics, it will find it increasingly difficult to win elections. At
one time it exploited backward caste votes in the name of Ram and now backward
castes are being wooed by number of other secular parties. Even Mayawati is seeking backward caste and Rajput
and even Brahmin votes.
The Muslim leaders also have
learnt after demolition of Babri Masjid that politics of confrontation would no longer pay
and are keeping low profile. It is very much in the interests of Muslim masses.
Muslim masses also can no longer be swayed by communal appeals. It is
interesting to note that Yaqub Qureshi,
the minister from U.P. was isolated when he announced that he would pay Rs. 51 crores to one who kills
the Danish cartoonist.
The Muslims showed total
indifference to him, which he eminently deserved. It was at best a political
gimmick. He too had an eye on coming elections in U.P. He wanted to emerge as
champion of Muslims and acquire a national stature. He should have been
dismissed from the cabinet, as he not only brought disgrace to Islam but also
to our country in the eyes of other nations.
We are a secular democratic
nation and our father of nation is Mahatma Gandhi who was apostle of
non-violence and peace. How can a minister from this country announce monetary
reward for killing a foreign national, whatever his crime? One should protest
against it with dignity and demand from Danish Government to take action as per
their law. What he announced was also totally against the principles of Islam,
as pointed out above. It is unfortunate
that Mulayam Singh kept quiet about such a grave
pronouncement by his cabinet minister. He should have at least warned him. But Mulayamsingh is no angle and not above electoral politics.
Benaras undoubtedly has
acquired a status of a political model for whole country that people could
maintain calm in view of gravest threat to peace. Let us hope the country will
follow it.
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Centre for Study of Society
and Secularism
Mumbai.
Website: www.csss-isla.com