Tufail Ahmad - Lal Shahbaz Qalandar bombing: It's worrying that Indian Urdu press allows arguments favouring mosque attacks
On a visit to
Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh on 17 February, I picked up a copy of
the Urdu daily Roznama Rashtriya Sahara. It had an article
examining how to establish an Islamic caliphate in modern times, written by
Professor Mohsin Usmani Nadvi, the surname denoting that he is a graduate of
the Lucknow-based Nadwatul Ulama madrassa. The other news that struck me
was the bombing at the shrine of Sufi mystic Lal Shahbaz Qalandar at
Sehwan in Pakistan. More than six dozen people were killed and hundreds wounded
in the bombing
at Sehwan, a town 200 kilometers northeast of Karachi.
Lal Shahbaz Qalandar
is a household name in India as well. The worry, given the infrastructure of
radical ideas spread by the Urdu media, is that such bombings can happen here
too. Stories of radicalisation associated with the Islamic State (IS) have not
ceased appearing in Indian media, which is troubling when seen in the context
of the dangerous mix of religion and politics advanced by Hindu politicians in
the name of secularism. But the question to be asked is this: Does a
theological understanding exist among Indian Islamic clerics that bombing of
mosques and shrines is justified? I think India is no exception to this
theological principle.
In recent years,
Taliban militants bombed mosques and dargahs (shrines) in Pakistan. Even in
India, radical pro-jihadi groups, like the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamaath (TNTJ),
have organised conferences and exhibitions where Sufi dargahs were dubbed as shirk (idolatry)
and therefore liable to be demolished. Additionally, a
university has been established in Bihar's Champaran region in the name of Ibn
Taymiyyah (1263-1328), a renowned Islamic jurist who is now known as the
grandfather of jihad in modern times. Suicide bombers emerge from the
intellectual world created by Islamic scholars like Taymiyyah, groups like
TNTJ, and the Muslim newspapers which advocate the establishment of a
caliphate.
On 9 February, the
Urdu newspaper Roznama Sahafat carried an article titled 'The
Practical Implementation of the Islamic Internationale', written by one Javed
Abbas Rizvi. The actual Urdu words used for 'Islamic Internationale' are ittehad-e-Islami.
I wondered if it could be translated as "Islamic unity", but it
doesn't seem feasible. If it were so, then the Urdu words would have been Islami
Ittehad, and not ittehad-e-Islami. So, the nearest translation
can be 'Islamic Internationale', which should be understood as a global
methodology. Inspired by Imam Khomeini, Al-Qaeda's American spokesman Adam
Yahiye Gadahn had spoken of the Jihadi Internationale.
Rizvi's article begins
by quoting Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, which
transformed Iran from a liberal state into a burqa-clad theocratic nation
almost overnight. Khomeini is quoted in the article as saying, "Do not
only parrot (in favour of) the Islamic Internationale, but also prove at the
practical level that you are united."
"The Islamic
Internationale cannot be kept limited to conferences, seminars, talks and
rallies. Rather, its implementation in the daily life of Muslims is
essential," it continues. The need for finding
practical solutions for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate is the
subject of the Roznama Rashtriya Sahara's article by Professor
Mohsin Usmani Nadvi. He quotes a formulation advanced by Pakistani Islamist Dr
Muhammad Hamidullah, that in modern times the divisive mindset of Muslim rulers
will not permit the establishment of an Islamic caliphate, and therefore a
federalist system like that in Switzerland should be set up, in which a
representative from each region will be the caliph by rotation.
Nadvi quotes
Hamidullah as telling an audience in Pakistan: "At present, Muslims have
40-50 countries. If such a (Switzerland-like) system is established in which
the head of every country is a member of the representative council and governs
as the ruler of the entire Islamic world by rotation, then a unity can be
established this way among the Islamic nations."
"There is a need
for a well-woven and well-organised collective established based on the
caliphate and emirate (provinces under a caliphate). The system of caliphate
should serve as the central position for all the Muslims of the world,"
Nadvi said. Nadvi's arguments will
be accepted by almost all Islamic clerics, but there will be a difference with
regards to how to implement it. Some doctrinal groups like TNTJ advocate a
peaceful propagation for now; Nadvi advances arguments at an intellectual
level, and the jihadis take this argument further by advocating use of force to
achieve the same objective.
The problem is that in
this process, bombing of mosques and shrines is justified. Even in India,
numerous Islamic clerics and writers, both Shia and Sunni, believe that mosques
can be demolished if they do not advance Islamic unity. In Kashmir, it were not
the Sunnis, but the Shias who first took up arms against the Indian State at
the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Roznama Sahafat is a pro-Shia newspaper leaning towards
Tehran and Iran's interests in India. Rizvi's article cites a Quranic verse to
advance the argument that mosques can be destroyed in order to forge Islamic
unity. The Taliban, who are Sunnis, also justified their bombing of mosques,
saying that Prophet Muhammad himself demolished a mosque in Medina. The issue of
demolition of mosques was discussed in the Quran. Rizvi cites verse 9:107 in
this context: "And (there are) those (hypocrite Muslims) who took for
themselves a mosque for causing harm and disbelief and division among the
believers and as a station for whoever had warred against Allah and His
Messenger before. And they will surely swear, 'We intended only the best.' And
Allah testifies that indeed they are liars."
Rizvi's article
basically laments that mosques are now divided in the names of sects, and his
argument therefore runs that they can be demolished if they come in the path of
Muslims' unity. As a reader in India,
you will be justified to think that this article is an exception. However,
it is not. The mosque demolished by the Prophet was known as Masjid-e-Zarrar.
Another Urdu daily, Roznama Khabrein, carried an article by
one Abdul Aziz on 6 February, on the need for "collective leadership"
of Muslims. This article is also devoted to the need for Muslim unity, but goes
on to cite the case of Masjid-e-Zarrar. The author says those who belong to the millat (the
global Islamic nation) and "do not want to build a one-and-a-half brick
mosque or Masjid-e-Zarrar" should "forge unity among Muslims".
The unwritten argument
here is that those who differ and build their own mosques such as
Masjid-e-Zarrar are practically out of Islam. This is a key argument forwarded
by the jihadis who bomb mosques and shrines in Pakistan. Such arguments will
not startle us if they happen in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, but they are very
much being discussed in the mainstream of Indian Muslims — very publicly
in the Urdu press.
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