BaKhabar, March 2015

Better light a candle than curse the darkness

Monthly e-Magazine ISSN 2319-4049

http://bakhabar.biharanjuman.org/ Volume 8, Issue 03, March 2015BE AWARE, ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE

COVER STORY

Males and Females:" J u s t F r i e n d s " ?

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PublisherBihar Anjuman BaKhabar

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Bakhabar : March 20152

A wonderful conversation worthy of being spread

Khalid came and he was upset while saying:"All of what we are in today (ie; the state we are today) of lowliness andhumiliation is because of these oppressive, corrupted rulers who havedestroyed Islam." Muhammad said to him:"I did not see you today for the fajr prayer. So why weren't you presentfor it? Did the rulers prevent you from performing it?"He said: 'No'Muhammad said: "and why do I see you shaving your beard while youknow that it is a sunnah of your Prophet ملسوهيلعهللاىلص? Did therulers force you to shave it?"He said: 'No'Muhammad said: "And the western clothing I see you wearing, did therulers order you to wear it?"He said: 'No'Muhammad said: "And this sign of the cross in which I see hangingacross your chest and on your shirt, are the rulers the one who madeyou wear it?"He said: 'No'Muhammad said: "Your garment exceeding past your ankles which isdisobedience to your Lord, did the rulers order you with this?"He said: 'No'Muhammad said: "And that box of cigarettes which you are holding inyour hands and trying to hide from me, did the rulers buy them foryou?"He said: 'No'And then suddenly, Khalid's phone began to ring with the tone of music,so Muhammad then said to him: "This music tone on your phone, didthe rulers put it (on your phone) for you?"He said: 'No'Muhammad said: "And before all of this, do you know the categories oftawheed which you worship your Lord with?"He said: 'No'Muhammad said: "Did the ruler prevent you from learning your belief?"He said: 'No'Muhammad said: "This is what is apparent, and what is hidden isgreater, but I hope by this you have come to know that you ARE THEREASON for the debasement/lowliness of your ummah.Khalid said: "yes, you have spoken the truth."Then he stayed silent fora little, then he said: "But the rulers?!!"Muhammad said: "Contemplate the statement of Allah the Most High:"Thus We make some wrong doers companions of others for what theyearned (what they used to do)" (6:129)So, Khalid said: 'Yes! But what is the solution?!'Muhammad (SallallahoAlaiheWasallam) said: "Allaahهناحبس informedus in His statement:"Indeed Allah does not change the condition of people until theychange what is within themselves" (13:11)And Allah did not say “until they change their rulers"End of conservationPosted by shaykh Fawaz al-MadkhaliهللاهظفحTranslator: Abu AnasAtif Hasanhttp://salaf-us-saalih.com/2014/08/25/a-wonderful-conversation-worthy-of-being-spread/


From “Beyond Education” collection

I By Nissar Nadiadwala I

On one hand we have young Muslims bornand brought up in un-Islamic manner,choosing the way of other cultures and ide-

ologies, and on the other hand we have New Mus-lims born and brought up in Un- Islamic manner aswell yet they choose to be an asset for the Muslimcommunity when they join us. They are revivingmany precious Islamic traditions which have beendead for us for centuries, and one of them is youngunmarried men marrying widows.

One of the best obligations of Islam upon the societywas widow and divorcee remarriages. Many Muslimwomen, who had lost their husbands, did not have towait for long except for their iddah period, and mar-riage proposals of men flooded their guardians. There were young men who used to marry widows,divorcees and deserted women as a religious ritual.There were no fashion shows or vulgar display ofbeauties that gave a parameter to grade the looks ofwomen. Young men in those days were awed bywomen whose stories of taqwa and sacrifice reachedthem, irrespective to their looks and age.

How many young men would be willing to take thehand of a widow today? When much of the Sunnahof the Prophet (pbuh) is being revived, no one drawsattention towards this noble tradition except a fewscholars. In fact our young men are totally governedby the view point of the society “what will peoplesay?” Here is a list of excuses in many of today’syoung men for not finding a right girl, which I termit as ‘The Cinderella Syndrome’.

My mother is looking for a girl for meMy sister did not like her hairHer dress and her views are too religious and ortho-dox My parents are asking me to wait.

I wish that someone should pose a question to thefatwa websites, Dr. Bilal Philips, Sheikh SalmanOudha and other scholars of Fiqh- “Do young Mus-lim men also require the consent of their wali fortheir marriage?”

Due to this matrimonial chaos, the marriage marketlooks saturated with only a few boys available for anincreased number of women. When the early genera-tions of Muslims chose taqwa as the criterion forchoosing a spouse, there was not a surplus ofwomen waiting for marriage as there was a varietyof “ religious men” available and they were in abun-dance.

Today many young people, girls and boys, wanthours of meetings and have scores of questions todiscover whether they are compatible or not. Yet,many complain of unhappiness and wrong choiceswithin a few years after marriage. The reasons aresimple: Boys go for looks and just looks, and girlsprefer wealth if they possess those looks.

Remember: Happiness cannot be judged by howmuch money your man spends on you but by howmuch quality time you spend with each other.

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Willing to Marry but to Whom?


King Faisal Prize

I By Sameen Ahmed Khan I

The King Faisal Foundation in Riyadh, SaudiArabia has announced the King Faisal Inter-national Prize for the year 2015. The recipi-

ents in the categories are as follows. Service toIslam: Dr. Zakir Abdul Karim Naik of India; IslamicStudies (Topic: Cultural Heritage of Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah): Dr. Abdulaziz Bin AbdulrahmanKaki of Saudi Arabia; Medicine (Topic: IntestinalMicroflora and Human Health): Professor JeffreyIvan Gordon of USA; and Science (Topic: Chem-istry) was awarded to Professor Omar MwannesYaghi of USA and Professor Michael Grätzel ofSwitzerland. The prize for Arabic Language and Lit-erature (Topic: Venture towards Arabisation of Sci-entific and Medical Matters) has been withheld due

to insufficient fulfillment of the Prize requirements.The prize consists of a certificate, hand-written inDiwani calligraphy, summarizing the laureate'swork; a commemorative 24 carat, 200 gram goldmedal, uniquely cast for each Prize; and a cash en-dowment of Saudi Riyal 750,000 (aboutUS$200,000) to be shared equally. The winners willreceive their awards in March in a ceremony inRiyadh under the auspices of the King of Saudi Ara-bia.

The prizes are named after the third king of SaudiArabia. In the year 1976, the sons of late KingFaisal (1906-1975) established a large-scale philan-thropic organization based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,and named it as King Faisal Foundation (KFF). Oneof the activities of the KFF is the King Faisal Inter-

The 2015 King Faisal International Prizes

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Medals of the King Faisal International Prize

Service to Islam

Islamic Studies

Arabic Language and

Literature

Medicine

Science

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Logo of the King Faisal International Prize

Main Features of the King Faisal International Prize

Postage Stamps On 3 April 2006, Saudi Arabia issued the following two postage stamps with the theme, "King Faisal International Prize - Supporting Research"


King Faisal Prize

national Prize (KFIP), to honour scholars and scien-tists, who have made the most significant advancesto benefit humanity and enrich human knowledge.The annual prizes are in five broad categories.Prizes for Arabic Literature; Islamic Studies; andServices to Islam; were first given in 1979. Medi-cine and Science were introduced in 1982 and 1983respectively. Each year the selection committee des-ignates subjects or subcategories to each of theabove five. The science subcategories cover a broadscope: physics; mathematics; chemistry; and biologyby rotation cycle of four years. Over the thirty-seven years (1979-2015), there have been 239 laure-ates from 43 nationalities. The distribution isService to Islam (43 schol-ars from 21 countries); Is-lamic Studies (35 scholarsfrom 14 countries); ArabicLanguage and Literature(46 scholars from 13 coun-tries); Medicine (63 schol-ars from 12 countries); andScience (52 scholars from12 countries). Within Sci-ence, the individual subjectrecipients are Physics (17from 7 countries); Mathe-matics (10 from 6 coun-tries); Chemistry (14 from6 countries); and Biology(11 from 4 countries).Within three decades theKFIP are ranked among themost prestigious awards.To date there are 17 KFIPlaureates who also receivedNobel Prizes (mostly after the KFIP). There are twoKFIP laureates (in Mathematics) who are also recipi-ents of the Fields Medal.

The prize for Service to Islam has been awarded toDr. Zakir Abdul Karim Naik of India. Dr. ZakirNaik is the President of the Islamic Research Foun-dation in India (IRF: http://www.irf.net/). He wasawarded the King Faisal International Prize in recog-nition of his outstanding services to Islam. He is oneof the most renowned non-Arabic speaking promul-gators of Islam. Dr. Zakir Naik has presented hun-dreds of public lectures and debates which explainthe Islamic creed, defend its teachings and propagateits principles on the basis of the Holy Quran and au-thentic Sunna (sayings and deeds of the ProphetMuhammad, PBUH). He has also paid considerable

attention to comparative religion, and became arenowned authority on this subject throughout the Is-lamic nation. His vast religious knowledge is notlimited to one faith but to several other religions in-cluding Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhismand Sikhism. He has even established a specializedorganization for comparative religious studies andorganized several training courses for scholars ofthis field worldwide. He has founded a televisionchannel, Assalam (Peace Channel,http://www.peacetv.tv/), which remains the only tele-vision channel in the world specializing in compara-tive religion. Its programs are broadcast in English,Urdu and Bangali languages and viewers of the Eng-

lish Channel are estimatedto exceed hundred million.He has also established aseries of schools, initially inIndia and subsequently in anumber of Arabic and Is-lamic countries. Theseschools train non-Arab stu-dents from an early age onArabic language andQuranic studies, in additionto regular classes of othercurricula in English. A totalof 43 scholars from 21countries have beenawarded the King Faisal In-ternational Prize for Serviceto Islam. The previousthree winners from the In-dian subcontinent areSayyid Abul Ala’a Al-Mowdoodi (1979); Sayyid

Abul-Hasan Ali Al-Hasani Al-Nadawi (1980); andKhurshid Ahmed (1990).

The prize for Islamic Studies (Topic: Cultural Her-itage of Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah) has beenawarded to Dr. Abdulaziz Bin Abdulrahman Kaki ofSaudi Arabia. He is a Consultant at Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah Development Commission. He is rec-ognized for his distinguished research on the culturalheritage of Al-Madinah Al-Munwwarah. This is bestdemonstrated by his multi-volume Arabic text on ar-chitectural and historic landmarks of Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah, particularly volume 7 which dealswith the foundations and characteristics of the an-cient architectural fabric of the city. In this research,the author combines cultural dimensions with fieldwork and supports his study with various illustra-

Page 5 of 5





King Faisal Prize

tions including old and modern images, maps andother illustrations, making it a major reference in thefield. A total of 35 scholars from 14 countries havebeen awarded the King Faisal International Prize forIslamic Studies. The two recipients from India areMuhammad N. Siddiqui (1982); and Ali AhmadGhulam Muhammad Nadvi (2004).

The prize for Medicine (Topic: Intestinal Microfloraand Human Health) is awarded to Professor JeffreyIvan Gordon of USA. The intestines of humans con-tain 100 trillion viable bacteria. These live bacteria,which make up 30% of the faecal mass, are knownas the intestinal microflora. There are two kinds ofbacteria in the intestinal flora, beneficial and harm-ful. In healthy subjects, they are well balanced andbeneficial bacteria dominate. These bacteria in thegut (alimentary canal or gastrointestinal tract) fulfilla host of useful functions for humans, including di-gestion of unutilized energy substrates, stimulatingcell growth, repressing the growth of harmful mi-

croorganisms, training the immune system to re-spond only to pathogens, and defending againstsome diseases. Professor Gordon is a Dr. RobertGlaser Distinguished University Professor, and Di-rector of the Centre of Genome Sciences and Sys-tems Biology at WashingtonUniversity, St Louis,USA. He is recognized for his seminal work ondefining the microbiomes genomic and metabolicrole in human health. Professor Gordon’s pioneeringwork and interdisciplinary studies of the human mi-crobiome (microorganisms in the gastrointestinaltracts) has provided fascinating insights into themetabolic processes and the genetic basis of mutu-ally beneficial relationships between the host andmicroorganisms in the human gut. His innovativeresearch has provided major breakthroughs into theinfluence of intestinal microbiota on postnatal devel-opment, physiology and illness susceptibility in hu-mans and has thus enhanced our understanding ofthe pathogenesis of complex diseases such as obe-

sity. His research has opened opportunities for novelgut microbiome directed treatments to improvehuman health. A total of 63 scholars from 12 coun-tries have been awarded the King Faisal Interna-tional Prize for Medicine.

This year’s prize for Science is in the area of Chem-istry. It has been awarded to Professor OmarMwannes Yaghi of USA and Professor MichaelGrätzel of Switzerland. Professor Yaghi was born in1965 in Jordan and moved to USA at the age of fif-teen. Now, he is a Professor of Chemistry and Bio-chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley,USA. Professor Omar Yaghi has made seminal con-tributions in the field of metal organic frameworks(MOFs). MOFs possess a wide array of potentialapplications including materials for gas storage,gas/vapour separation, catalysis, luminescence, anddrug delivery. In the last two decades, he developedMOFs through innovative approaches to constructnovel materials and explored their applications in

various fields, including encapsulation of bio-mole-cules, and capturing of gases such as carbon dioxideand hydrogen. Professor Michael Grätzel was bornin 1944 in Dorfchemnitz, Saxony, Germany. Now,Professor Grätzel is a Professor, Director of the Lab-oratory of Photonics and Interfaces (Institute ofPhysical Chemistry), Swiss Federal Institute ofTechnology, Switzerland. He is recognized for hisfoundational and practical discoveries in the devel-opment of photo-electrochemical systems for solarenergy conversion. His world-famous Grätzel solarcells are simple and relatively inexpensive to manu-facture, and they possess unique practical propertiesincluding flexibility and transparency. ProfessorGrätzel’s work has had and will continue to have amajor impact on the practical realization of solar-en-ergy conversion. Here, it is interesting to note thatthis piece of work is optics-related. This is an addi-tional boost to the on-going activities of the Interna-tional Year of Light and Light-based Technologies

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King Faisal Prize

(IYL-2015). It is to be recalled that by another re-markable coincidence bot the Physics and ChemistryNobel Prizes of 2014 are related to optics! A total of52 scholars from 12 countries have been awarded theKing Faisal International Prize for Science. Prof. MS Narasimhan is the only Indian to have won theKFIP in the science category (for mathematics).

Here, it is relevant to recall the Egyptian born Amer-ican chemist Ahmed Zewail who pioneered the Fem-tosecond chemistry in the 1980’s by observing thechemical reactions (a femtosecond is a thousandth ofa billionth of a second). He was the first person toobserve the formation and breaking of chemicalbonds in real time. Ahmed Zewail was recognizedby the King Faisal International Prize for Science in1989 in the subcategory physics with the co-winnerTheodor W. Hansch from Germany. Ahmed Zewailreceived the 1999 Nobel Prize for Chemistry un-shared. Egypt recognized him by issuing the postagestamps in 1998 and 1999; Order of Merit in 1995;and Order of the Grand Collar of Nile in 1999. It isto be further recalled that the Science HistorianRoshdi Hifni Rashed received the Award in 2007under the category of Islamic Studies for the Topic:Muslims’ Contribution to Pure or Applied Sciences.

The prize for Arabic Language and Literature(Topic: Venture towards Arabisation of Scientificand Medical Matters) has been withheld as none ofthe nominees met the criteria laid down by the selec-tion committee this year. To date, a total of 46scholars from 13 countries have been awarded theKing Faisal International Prize for Arabic Languageand Literature.

The topics for the five prizes for the year 2016 (1437Hijri) are Service to Islam; Islamic Studies (Topic:Muslim Geography Heritage); Arabic Language andLiterature; Medicine (Topics: ClinicalApplication ofNext Generation Genetics); and Science (Topic: Bi-ology) respectively. Further details for all nomina-tions at: the King Faisal Foundation Website:http://www.kff.com/ and http://www.kfip.org/.

Further Reading1.King Faisal Foundation Website:http://www.kff.com/ 2.King Faisal International Prize Website:http://www.kfip.org/ 3.Nobel Prizes Website: http://www.nobelprize.org/ 4.Sameen Ahmed Khan, The King Faisal Interna-tional Prize for 2014, BaKhabar, Vol 7, Issue 02, pp

21-22 (February 2014). Published by Bihar Anju-man, http://bakhabar.biharanjuman.org/. 5. Sameen Ahmed Khan, 2015 the International Yearof Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL),BaKhabar, Vol 7, Issue 01, pp 17-18 (January 2014).Published by Bihar Anjuman, http://www.biharanju-man.org/bakhabar/BaKhabar-January2014.pdf.

Sameen Ahmed Khan ([email protected],http://SameenAhmedKhan.webs.com/)Engineering Department, Salalah College of Tech-nology (SCT), Salalah, Sultanate of Oman

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Marvelous achievement by Studentof Rahbar Coaching Centre Patna

It is extremely pleasing to share with you thenews relating to Khadeeja Mastoor, a former stu-dent of Rahbar Coaching Center, Patna,who is

studying in 4th semester at MANUU PolytechnicHyderabad(her Branch is Computer Science and En-gineering).In a competition organized by All India Women’sConference (Hyderabad-Secundrabad branch),She bagged

1st Position in - Word search, Crossword puzzle.

1st Position in - Essay Writing Competition.

1st Position in - Crossword Puzzle.

She received award in racing too.

She has secured 830 marks out of 900 in first year ofher Diploma Engineering Course.

May Allah bless her with The Success in both theworlds.

The assistance and support of "Bihar Anjuman" forthese poor children is a very noble work. May Allahaccept our effort. in-shaa-Allah we will achieve "TheGoal".

News shared by Shahid Amin, Al-Kabir Polytechnic,Jamshedpur


Opinion

By IndiaTomorrow.net,

New Delhi, 18 Feb 2015: People’s Union ForCivil Liberties (PUCL) today issued a three-page statement detailing as to why the arrest

of civil rights activist-turned journalist coupleTeestaSetalvad and JavedAnand would be in viola-tion of the present laws. Gujarat High Court has lastweek refused their anticipatory bail plea but theSupreme Court has stayed the arrest warrant till Fri-day (19th Feb).

Prof. Prabhakar Sinha, President, PUCL and Dr. V.Suresh, General Secretary, PUCL in a joint statementsaid: “This is not the first time that TeestaSetalvad isbeing targetted through false FIRs. Earlier too in theBest Bakery case of Vadodara and the Exhumationcase of Panchmahals, there were efforts to malignthe name and credibility of journalists Teesta andJavedAnand; however, both were stayed by theSupreme Court.”

“PUCL had brought to the attention of the NHRC

the type of persecution and prosecution by Gujaratpolice of TeestaSetalvad and JavedAnand and theCJP for persistently seeking justice for the victims ofthe communal holocaust in Gujarat in 2002 follow-ing the Godhra incidents. We had pointed out thatthe, “allegations of financial impropriety are easy tomake; but the damage such allegations cause to indi-vidual reputation and self-respect is irreparable.”

“Seen in this backdrop the dogged and repeated de-mand of the Gujarat police seeking the arrest and“custodial interrogation” of Teesta and Javed is amatter of grave concern,” they said and pointed outthree reasons:

“Firstly, we would like to highlight that legally thedirection of the Gujarat High Court seeking custodialinterrogation is in violation of the fundamental rightunder Art. 20(3) of the Constitution that “No personaccused of any offence shall be compelled to be awitness against himself”.

“Secondly, we would like to point out that factually

PUCL: Why Teesta Setalvad can't be arrested legally


Opinion

during the pendency of the anticipatory bail beforethe Gujarat High Court, Teesta and Javed in obedi-ence to the directions of the court had presentedthemselves regularly before the investigation offi-cers. They were subjected to hours of questioningeach time during which they fully cooperated. Re-portedly all documents including audited accounts,bank statements of the individuals and the Trust, res-olutions of trustees and so on were submitted. Volu-minous documents were filed before the GujaratHigh Court as well. Hence the insistence of the Gu-jarat police for `custodial interrogation’ appears to bemore a veiled threat of third degree methods and tor-ture than any genuine necessity for investigation.”

“PUCL would like topoint out that the SChas clearly spelt outthe law relating toarrest and custodialinterrogation in thelandmark case of`Joginder Kumar vsState of UP’ (1994).The SC has pointedout that arrest anddetention in policelock-up of a personcan cause incalcula-ble harm to the repu-tation andself-esteem of a per-son and therefore noarrest can be made ina routine manner ona mere allegation ofcommission of an of-fence made against aperson. Pointing outthat it would be“prudent for a police officer in the interest of protec-tion of the constitutional rights of a citizen and per-haps in his own interest that no arrest should bemade without a reasonable satisfaction reached aftersome investigation as to the genuineness and bonafides of a complaint and a reasonable belief both asto the person's complicity and even so as to the needto effect arrest”. Stressing that denying a person ofher / his liberty is a serious matter the SC said, “Aperson is not liable to arrest merely on the suspicionof complicity in an offence. There must be some rea-sonable justification in the opinion of the officer ef-fecting the arrest that such arrest is necessary and

justified. Except in heinous offences, an arrest mustbe avoided if a police officer issues notice to personto attend the Station House and not to leave the Sta-tion without permission would do.” ((1994) 4 SCC260 at page 267, emphasis ours).

“Very importantly, the apex court also pointed outthat “No arrest can be made because it is lawful forthe police officer to do so. The existence of thepower to arrest is one thing. The justification for theexercise of it is quite another. The police officermust be able to justify the arrest apart from hispower to do so”. The court thereafter pointed outthat arrest and custodial interrogation that follows

should be only inthe following cir-cumstances: (i) ifthe accused per-sons will flee jus-tice or (ii) tamperwith evidence or(iii) intimidatewitnesses. The rul-ing of theSupreme Court isnow a statutorysafeguard incorpo-rated in section 41of the CriminalProcedure Code asamended in 2010.”

“None of thesethree situationsexists in the caseof Teesta andJaved, who havebeen regularly ap-pearing before theauthorities. They

have always produced required documents evenwhen it was clear that the police were on a fishingexpedition desperately trying to find some evidenceto pin against them. It is necessary also to point outthat the accusation against Teesta and Javed are notof having committed heinous offences but financialones, all of which can be established or disprovedmainly on documentary evidences.”

http://www.indiatomorrow.net/eng/pucl-why-teesta-setalvad-cant-be-arrested-legally

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Orbituary

Hazaribagh, Jharkhand: Noted Urdu poet andPadmashree recipient Dr. KalimAjiz passedaway at the age of 95 at his residence in

Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, on Sunday.

Born in 1920 and a graduate of Patna University, Dr.Ajiz was the Chairperson of the Urdu AdvisoryCommittee to the government of Bihar.Author of several books, his poetries were highly re-garded by his peers and public alike.

The following is an excerpt from an article publishedin PatnaDaily 12 years ago in 2003:Dr. Ajiz, who is very proud to represent India, andPatna in particular, was born in a village in Patnadistrict in the 1920s. He was a gold medalist in BAfrom Patna College and then earned his Masters de-gree in Urdu from Patna University. He also got hisdoctorate from Patna University for his thesis on"Evolution of Urdu Literature in Bihar." This thesisis now available in a book form. He served as a lec-turer for decades in the Department of Urdu at PatnaUniversity.

In 1976, his first book of ghazals was released by thePresident of India in VigyanBhawan, Delhi. In the'60s and '70s he was the only Urdu poet who repre-sented Bihar in the Red Fort Mushaira held everyyear in Delhi on the eve of Independence Day.One of the greatest Urdu poets of all time, Rahgu-patiSahayFiraqGorakpuri was a great admirer of Dr.KaleemAjiz. He sent his famous tape recordedwords for Dr. Ajiz's first book while he was lying onhis deathbed in which he respectfully said he feltjealous of Dr. Ajiz because of the ease in which hecould express his thoughts through his verses. Hesaid he loved Mr. Ajiz's poems so much that when-ever he heard him reciting his ghazals, he alwaysforgot his own works.

This humble and pious man is loved by everyone.Even with his frail health he travels a lot especiallyto Middle East and North America. He has someclose relatives in the United States and Canadawhom he visits whenever his health allows him to.Dr. Ajiz avoids any sort of publicity or fanfare de-spite the fact that he has hundreds of thousands ofadmirers all over the world. For the last 10-15 years,the winner of Padmashree award avoids mushairasas he believes their quality has gone down im-mensely and has become cheap and mediocre.Dr. Ajiz is very proud of being from Patna, the citythat was also once known as Pataliputra andAzeemabad. He lives in a house on Ashok Rajpathopposite B. N. College. His elder son is a medicaldoctor in Patna Medical College Hospital, who isconsidering publishing his father's first book in Dev-nagri script.

Currently, at least a dozen people are doing theirPhD thesis on the works of Dr. KaleemAjiz in vari-ous universities of Bihar. Since India is celebratingits 54th Independence Day this year, it would not beout of place to say that through his verses, Dr. Ajizhas expressed his innermost feelings about the free-dom from British rule and considers our Independ-ence as the greatest event of this era and the partitionof 1947 and its repercussions as the greatest tragedyin the Indian history.A man with such a rich philosophical background,it's not possible for us at PatnaDaily.Com to do jus-tice to Dr. Ajiz's life and literary works in such a lim-ited column. However, Patna should be very proudof this man and there is no doubt that his popularitywill keep increasing even after hundreds of yearsfrom now.In the words of this great poet:"Yeh pukar saare chaman mein thi, woh sehar hui-woh sehar huiMere aashiyyan se dhooan utha, to mujhe bhiiskikhabar hui."

(There was this outcry everywhere in the garden thatlo the morning has come, morning has come !!When smoke started rising from my nest, I also be-came aware of this.)

The author of several books and classical ghazals,Dr. Ajiz is a retired professor of Patna Universityand a recipient of the much coveted Padmashreeaward for his contributions to Urdu literature.

Eminent Urdu Poet Kalim Ajiz Passes away


Islam

In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the MostMerciful

This was a piece of advice from Hamad bin'Atiq an-Najdi to Muslims in general, writtenaround two hundred years ago. It finds itself

very relevant today.

"...And it should be known that intellect ('aql) is ofthree types:

• Natural intellect• Faith-based intellect obtained from the Prophetic light• Satanic, hypocritical 'intellect'

And the possessors of this last type think they aresomething special, and this type of intellect is foundamong many people - most of them, in fact. It is theessence of ruin and the fruit of hypocrisy, as its pos-sessors think that intellect is to please everyone andto not go against their interests and desires, as wellas to gain their friendship. They say that the bestthing for you is to be part of the people and don'tcause them to hate you.

This is the corruption and ruin of the soul, and this isdue to four things:

The first is that the one who does this has gained thepleasure of people by angering Allah, and the peopleare more important in his eyes than Allah. Whoevergains the pleasure of people by angering Allah willend up with the anger of both the people and Allah.It was narrated that Allah Said: "When I am angered,My Curse reaches the seventh generation of descen-dants."

So, if the one who is able to enjoin the good and pre-vent the bad abandons doing so, he will bring aboutAllah's Curse that will reach the seventh generationof his progeny, and this is proven by the verse: {"Thedisbelievers from the Children of Isra'il were cursedby the tongue of Dawud and 'Isa bin Maryam. This isbecause they were rebellious and would trans-gress..."} [al-Ma'idah; 78]

So, it is clear that this compromising person has ru-ined himself through what he thought would helphim.

Second, it is inevitable that Allah will open a door ofhumiliation and disgrace for the one who compro-mises from where he sought honor. And some of theSalaf said: "Whoever leaves off enjoining good andpreventing evil out of his fear of people, the respectand obedience people had for him will be removed."So, if he orders his son or servant to do somethingfor him, they will belittle his status. Just like he belit-tled the rights of Allah, Allah will belittle and humili-ate him: {"...they forgot Allah. So, He forgotthem..."} [at-Tawbah; 67]

Third, if some sort of punishment is sent down, theone who compromises will be one of its targets, as inthe verse: {"And beware of a trial that won't only af-flict the wrongdoers among you..."} [al-Anfal; 25]

...And Ibn Abi ad-Dunya reported from Wahb binMunabbih that he said: "When Dawud made a mis-take, he said: "My Lord, Forgive me!" So, AllahSaid: "I have Forgiven you and placed your sin onthe Children of Isra'il." Dawud asked: "Why, OLord? How can this be when You are the Just whooppresses nobody? I fall into error and You place thesin on others?" He Said: "When you did this error,they didn't criticize you for it.""

And Ibn Abi ad-Dunya reported that Allah revealedto Yusha' bin Nun (Joshua): "I will destroy 40,000 ofthe best of your people and 60,000 of their worst."He asked: "My Lord, I can understand the worst ofthem being destroyed. Why destroy the best ofthem?" He Said: "They didn't become angry for MyAnger, and they would give the worst ones food anddrink."

Ibn 'Abd al-Barr and others reported that Allah com-manded one of the Angels to destroy a town. So, heasked: "My Lord, it has such and such a person whois a zahid who worships You constantly!" Allah Said:"Begin with him, and let me hear his voice. His facenever once became red for My sake."

So, the only way out when punishments descend isto be from those who enjoin the good and preventthe wrong, as Allah Said: {"So, when they forgotwhat they were reminded of, We saved those whowould forbid what was bad..."} [al-A'raf; 165]

Avoiding the Satanic 'Intellect'


Islam

Fourth, this compromising person who seeks thepleasure of people is worse than the adulterer, thethief, and the consumer of alcohol. Ibn al-Qayyimsaid:

"The Religion is not just leaving off outer prohibi-tions. Rather, it is to fulfill what Allah Loves alongwith this. Most religious people today don't do thisexcept when it comes to things that the majority ofpeople accept and agree with them in. As for Jihad,enjoining good and preventing evil, giving advicefor the sake of Allah and His Messenger to His wor-shipers, giving aid and victory to Allah and His Mes-senger and Book and Religion - these obligationsdon't even occur to them, let alone evoke a desire ontheir part to carry them out, let alone be carried themout by them!

The lowest ofpeople in the Re-ligion and theworst of themwith Allah arethose who aban-don these obliga-tions, even if hepractices themost zuhd fromeverything in thisworld. It is rareto find from themone whose facebecomes red forthe sake of Allah, and who becomes angry due to Hislimits being violated, and who gives all he has tohelp his religion. Those who fall into major sins arebetter with Allah than these people."

So, imagine that someone fasts all day, prays allnight, abstains from all worldly pleasures, and de-spite this never becomes angry or has his face red-dened for Allah's sake and doesn't enjoin good andprevent evil - such a man is the most hated of peopleto Allah and the least of them in religiousness, andthose who fall into major sins are better with Allahthan such a person.

And a trustworthy person told me that Shaykh al-Islam, the leader of the da'wah in Najd (Muhammadbin 'Abd al-Wahhab), once said: "I saw some peoplesitting in the mosque with their Qur'ans, reciting andweeping. However, they didn't enjoin the good ifthey saw it and they didn't prevent evil if they saw it.

I saw people sitting near them saying: "These are thesource of benefit," and I said: "These are the sourceof disgrace." Someone heard me and said: "I can'tsay they are a source of disgrace!" So, I replied tohim: "They are blind and mute."

And this is supported by what some of the Salafsaid: "The one who is silent about the truth is a silentdevil, while the one who speaks falsehood is aspeaking devil."

So, if the one who compromises by remaining silentcomes to know that he is from the most hated of peo-ple to Allah even if he thinks he is good, he wouldspeak openly. And if the one who seeks the approvaland pleasure of people came to know that by not

speaking out against their evil that those who fallinto major sins are better with Allah than him - evenif he assumes himself to be religious - he would re-pent from his compromise and would retreat from it.And if the one who is stingy with his tongue fromopenly proclaiming the command of Allah came toknow that he is a silent devil even if he fasts, prays,and is a zahid, he would do all that he could to avoidbeing similar to Satan.

O Allah, I seek refuge with You from every actionthat angers the Merciful, and from every trait thatmakes us resemble Satan or compromise on our reli-gion with the people of doubts, hypocrisy, and kufr.

And may peace and blessings be on Muhammad, hisHousehold, and Companions."

['ad-Durar as-Saniyyah'; 8/75-79]


Book Review

I By Usha Sanyal I

In Muslim Politics in Bihar, Mohammad Sajjad,an assistant professor of history at Aligarh Mus-lim University, breaks new ground in a number

of ways. First, addressing Bihar Muslim politics dur-ing the colonial period leading up to Partition, heshows that unlike U.P. and Bengal, its two neigh-bours (which, together with Punjab, have receivedmost of the attention by historians of Partition),Bihar Muslims did not embrace the separatist mes-sage of the Muslim League until 1946, when in thewake of massive riots in Bihar the Muslim Leaguemade major electoral gains on the strength of the slo-gan ‘Islam in danger’. Whilesupport for separate electorateswas weak among leadingBihar Muslim politicians, thatfor Congress and for compos-ite nationalism—conceptual-ized as political unity withnon-Muslim Indians combinedwith non-interference by theState in Muslim religio-cul-tural affairs—aimed at endingBritish rule in India wasstronger through much of theearly twentieth century.

Second, Sajjad explores notonly Bihar Muslim engage-ment with the Congress andthe Muslim League, but alsowith the less well-known Mus-lim Independent Party (MIP),Imarat-e Shariah, and the All-India Momin Conference,whose politics were allied withthe Congress.

This background in turn explains the post-Indepen-dence politics of Bihari Muslims. In both the cam-paigns which they have waged between 1947 and thepresent—that for the recognition of Urdu as a secondState language until the late 1980s, and the strugglefor social justice and political power since the 1990sthrough the creation of new reservation policies

which would benefit the most deprived amongthem—Bihar Muslims have participated fully in thedemocratic process in Independent India by mobiliz-ing the masses for the attainment of their constitu-tionally guaranteed rights. The study thus seeks tochallenge the idea that Indian Muslims bear ‘respon-sibility for the partition of India’ (p. xvi) by showingthat in Bihar, Muslims had an antipathy to the Mus-lim League’s Two-Nation Theory and a strong pref-erence for a united, pluralist anti-colonial struggle.Furthermore it argues that contrary to the perceptionof Indian Muslims as ‘isolationist’, they have beenfully engaged with the language of Indian ‘constitu-tionalist, secular, pluralist democracy’ (p. xvi) after

Independence. The book uses anumber of Urdu sources whichhave not been explored before,including biographies, histories,the Urdu press, and works offiction.

The first four chapters of thebook deal with the history ofBihar Muslim politics before1947, and the last two with po-litical mobilization around theissues of Urdu as a second lan-guage and Bihar’s reservationpolicy. Taking these in chrono-logical order, I will focus mycomments on the Imarat-eShariah and Momin Conferencefirst, as they showcase inter-communal and class issues re-spectively, before turning to thepost-Independence chapters.One can follow Sajjad’s overallargument in the book by look-ing at these narrower issues.

The Imarat-e Shariah was established in 1921 byMaulana Mohammad Sajjad (1880–1940) on the ad-vice of MaulanaAbul Kalam Azad, in order to ‘ad-dress . . . collective problems of the community in aninstitutional manner, so that the religio-cultural do-main of the religious minority would remain a spacewherein the state would not interfere’ (p. 73). The

Beyond SeparatismA review of MUSLIM POLITICS IN BIHAR: CHANGING CONTOURS By Mohammad Sajjad


Book Review

Jamiatul-Ulama-e Hind (JUH), associated with De-oband (whom the author wrongly conflates with‘Wahhabis’), had been established in 1919; at its1921 annual session it approved the new institution.

The immediate context was theKhilafat movement.Azad and the Deobandiulama decided that until theOttoman caliph was free to appoint his own Indianamir-e hind, the JUH ulama would elect him and acouncil of ulama, raising the necessary fundsthrough zakat andushr collections from local net-works. The amir and deputy (na’ib) amir’s jurisdic-tion was limited to Bihar and Orissa. MaulanaSajjadbecame the deputy amir.

They would create shariah courts; they had their ownweekly, the Naqeeb (71–76). The operation of theshariah courts is not discussed in the book, however.Under MaulanaSajjad’s leadership, the Imarat-eShariah became actively involved in nationalist poli-tics side by side with the Congress, including thenoncooperation movement (1920–22), civil disobe-dience movement (1930–34), and (under new leader-ship) the Quit India movement (1942). The Imarat-eShariah’s rejection of the Muslim League’s Two-Na-tion Theory and defence of ‘composite nationalism’(muttahidahqaumiyat) was based on the argumentthat Muslims in ‘minority provinces’ (aqalliyat-subah) had nothing to gain from separation, their sit-uation being completely different from that ofMuslims who constituted the numerical majority(aksriyat) in their provinces. In 1940, MaulanaSajjadwrote to Jinnah saying that the latter had no con-structive programme of action to offer Muslims inminority provinces, and that inter-community affairsshould be decided on the basis of ‘the judicioustreatment of all sects’ (p. 185).

In the 1920s the Arya Samaj’sShuddhi movement inShahabad district, aimed at converting the Malka-naRajputs back to Hinduism (pp. 104–5), marred re-lations between the Congress and its Muslim allies,as did the rise of the Hindu Mahasabha and the ac-tive involvement of the lower ranks of Congressleaders in it in the 1920s and 1930s (pp. 106–10).Other issues included Muslim bitterness at the BiharCongress ministry’s lack of willingness to includeMuslim leaders in positions of authority in 1937–39,and periodic riots over a range of communal issues(the Shahabad riots of 1917 and the 1946 riots book-ending them in the colonial period). Things got sobad that in April 1947 a proposal was made to divideBihar into Hindu and Muslim provinces; though not,

Sajjad emphasizes, into separate ‘States’ (p. 328).Nor did Muslim leaders encourage migrationout of Bihar.

The discussion of the Momin Conference (foundedin 1924–25), another thread running through thebook, raises economic issues rather than communalones. The Momins were lower-caste weavers whoalso called themselves Ansari. As Sajjad notes, theMomins’ anti-British politics were fuelled in largepart by the fact that the weaving industry had beenwiped out by the ‘colonial onslaught’ (p.321). TheMomin Conference was also anti-League and pro-Congress (remaining so until the Bhagalpur riots of1989, when the Congress Government failed to pro-tect the Muslims, many of them Momins). In 1939its leader Abdul Qaiyum Ansari described the Mus-lim League as an upper-class institution which ‘his-tory and experience [had] taught the Momins not totrust’ (p. 198). In 1940 the Momin Conference de-nounced as ‘blasphemy’ the League’s demand for aseparate Muslim homeland (pp. 196–97). With aclaimed membership of 45 million people, theMomins presented a formi-dable oppositional forcein the early 1940s. However, the dynamic changed inthe League’s favour as a result of a complex combi-nation of forces, among them the riots of 1946.The last two chapters of the book raise issues aboutpolitical participation in democratic processes in In-dependent India. Here Sajjad once again contraststhe Bihar Muslims’ experience with that of Muslimsin neighbouring states. Given that Muslims could not‘express their demands for political recognition onthe basis of religion’ in the secular Indian state, ‘lan-guage . . . emerged as a convenient tool of minoritypolitics’ (p. 242). In Bihar, unlike U.P., from the1960s to the 1980s Muslims waged a successfulmultifaceted campaign to secure Urdu’s status asBihar’s second official language, leading to the ac-ceptance of their seven-point demands in the 1980s(1980, 1981, and 1989). Although in practice, giventhe high rate of Muslim illiteracy in the state (64%;p. 284) and the paucity of jobs related to knowledgeof Urdu (p. 273), this was a somewhat pyrrhic vic-tory, it allowed the Bihar Muslim leadership to putthe issue behind it and to focus on a far wider one,namely, ‘the demand for a proportionate share in thepower structure’ (p. 280) through designation of dif-ferent Muslim occupational/caste groups as either‘backward’ (Annexure II) or ‘most backward’ (An-nexure I) (p. 283).

The broader context for this struggle is that post-


Book Review

Babri Masjid (1992), Muslims became disillusionedwith their religious leaders, giving rise to a crop ofnew leaders of lower class/caste origins (p.338). Saj-jad lays out the complex dynamics of this strugglewith great skill, based on the Muslim groups’ separa-tion into three distinct categories, namely, highborn/upper caste (ashraf), low caste, comparable tothe Shudras among Hindus (ajlaf), and ‘unclean’castes (arzal). The terms ‘Dalit Muslims’ or ‘Pas-manda Muslims’ have also become popular for thetwo lower groups. Sajjad sees this ‘social justice’movement as a hopeful sign: ‘The central emphasisof these movements of the backward caste Muslimsis to seek reservations around the concepts of recog-nition and representation in the structures of power. .. . Notwithstanding its limitations, its leadership doesnot come from the clergy. . . . It mobilizes the com-mon masses of the relevant social groups, underlinesnon-religious issues of concern, and contains thepossibilities of forging unity with similarly locatedcaste groups of other religious communities’ (p.315).

The question that kept returning to me as I read thebook was, what makes Bihar so different from U.P.?Why did Muslims in Bihar resist the Two-NationTheory when so many in U.P., its next-door neigh-bour, also a Muslim minority State, embraced it?While the author certainly does address the issue inpassing in parts of the book, the explanations he of-fers, especially for the colonial period, seem inade-quate. For example, he writes that anti-Britishfeelings in Bihar were strong because of the ‘Wah-habi’ movement in the early nineteenth century, somuch so that ‘this tendency never peter[ed] out’ andkept manifesting itself up to the 1940s (p. 48). Thisexplanation is not supplemented by any further dis-cussion until much later in the book when Sajjad dis-cusses differences between Bihar and U.P. in thepost-Independence period. Here the explanations—notably that in Bihar the Congress was highly caste-ridden and the Muslims were therefore valuable todifferent groups as a voting bloc—are more convinc-ing, though still barely touched upon in just a fewpages (e.g., p. 239).

It is an excellent volume which makes a valuablecontribution to the field of South Asian history

Publisher: Routledge, New Delhi, 2014, pp. 376, Rs995.00 The Book Review, vol. 39, no. 2, February2015, pp. 43-44


History

I By Syed Iqbal Zaheer I

Consider a few facts concerning books and li-braries alone, not to touch on the more im-portant, the educational and knowledge

aspects.

Libraries then were an integral part of the life of themajority of people. They crowded into them as theircounterparts crowd into shopping malls today. Thebuildings – the houses of learning – they loved werebuilt lavishly andmaintained lavishly,while their own homeswere decorated withthatched roofs. Thosemassive buildingswere topped by domessupported on monu-mental columns. Withrooms large and roofstall, every class ofbooks had its ownhousing area: history,economics, social sci-ences, geography, reli-gion, science, etc.Every subject had itcollections in thou-sands. Windows tall,that would allow inluxurious swash offresh air, had to passover trees and lakesthat surrounded thebuilding, describe theluxury.

Those libraries werenot an uncommonsight. Baghdad at one point of time had some threedozen libraries. Their rackswere filled by the sup-plies from hundreds of book dealers. In Morocco,not as great a city of learning – and the learned – asBaghdad, one particular street had one hundred li-braries and bookshops. It looked as if books were themain business of the people of the town, as if theyate and drank them.

Zaytuna Mosque library in Tunisia stocked 100,000books. But it was not an exceptional case. Every

mosque in the Islamic world, particularly in thenorthern Arab provinces from Marrakash to Bukharato Ray to Andalus, had libraries attached to them.The books were donated to the mosques as waqfproperty. Khateeb al-Baghdadi had given away hispersonal library as waqf – for the delight of vora-cious readers. In addition, knowledge-hungry menborrowed books from personal libraries or read themon the spot. Scholars spent years searching materialthrough libraries spread as far wide as a thousandmiles. Late in the years, Zarkashi, the writer of 4-

volume “Al-Burhan fiÙlum al-Qur’an,”whose book is still ex-tent, cites hundreds ofbooks from which hetook his material.

Bookshops too werenot to be left behind bythe librariesfor theirluxurious atmosphere.People came in notmerely looking for ti-tles, but also to meetwith other like-mindedscholars, to discusswhat was there withintwo hard covers of thebooks, over tea and re-freshments in no shortsupply within thebookstores. The book-store owners them-selves werebookworms, knew theauthor’s level of learn-ing, quality of materialthe author had pre-sented, and could eas-

ily advise the novices or the specialists, on thecontents of a book.

Bookstores and libraries were, however, not the onlyplace where you saw piles upon piles of books, newand old. Every second man’s home had its own li-brary. Imam Muslim had to forage through a wholenight amongst his books, to find a particular hadithhe wished to double check. Jahez had such a tall li-brary in his house, that when the books fell on himthey buried him to bestow martyrdom on him. When

A Civilization We Do Not Belong To

The Abbasid Caliphate created a civi-lization to which we do not seem tobelong. Except for morals and well-spread piety, its spirit was more inconsonance with the Western civiliza-tion, at least so far as knowledge andlearning are concerned,than with theMuslims of today’s world. Indeed,today’s Muslims seem to be at an ir-reconcilable hostile confrontationwith the civilization of theAbbasids.To be sure, if it is said thattoday’s Muslims stand apart in com-plete contradiction with – not only theAbbasid – but their entire past, rootand branch, then, it would be no over-statement.


History

scholars moved, they carried their books on a dozencamels and when libraries were moved, they neededhundreds of camels. Khateeb wrote a history ofSyria, never like its kind has been written since thenin any language. The 30-volume books of the east orwest, past or present, pale before it. Translated intoEnglish, its 80 Arabic volumes would need 150 fatvolumes today. In the Bhatkal library, arranged ontables, they run into four meter length. It was in thistradition, that as late as the 19th Islamic century,Shah Abdul Aziz had some 15-20,000 books in hisprivate library, of which, he had not missed to readyany.

Referring to the intellectual activities of the Abbasidperiod, Phillip K. Hitti wrote,“When, therefore, we speak of Arab medicine or phi-losophy or mathematics, what we mean is the learn-ing that was enshrined in Arabic books written bymen who were themselves Syrians, Persians, Iraqis,Egyptians or Arabians Christians, Jews or Moslemsand who drew their material from Greek, Aramaic,Persian and other sources.” (Syria, a Short History,Macmillan, New York, 1959, p. 141, pdf)

Imagine the influence of the lingua franca of Islam –Arabic – that the all-time most influential RabbiMaimonides, wrote his famous commentary onMishna, apart from several others such as “Dalaat al-Haa’ireen” – books of Jewish interest – in Arabic.Compare that situation with that prevalent in anycountry of today’s Muslim world. It is, at best, onlylarge cities that can be proud of a library. While inthe USA every village has a library, many towns ofthe Islamic world, especially Asian, miss them alto-gether. An acquaintance who peeped into a village li-brary in USA, found a few books on Islam too,including one on the life of Bilal. Not many Muslimlibraries will boast of the life of this, their perennialhero, and a constant and un-drying theme of theirpreachers.

Muslim libraries of today are housed in decrepitbuildings, dimly lit, with plaster falling off fromevery wall. They are poorly furnished, stink from in-side, and are surrounded by filth and squalor gener-ously left to rot all over around the building.Furniture creaks. Books are old, torn, and some in-complete. Volumes are missing, good books havedisappeared, and the unwanted works – worthy ofwaste baskets – are lined up in racks in disorderlymanner. No catalogue will lead to a book of demand– if the book is still there in stock. Many entries of

the catalogues are missing, about which no oneknows how they were lost. The librarian and atten-dants hardly know what they have, and are, invari-ably, clerks and officials who deal with books asvegetable merchants deal with potatoes and cucum-ber. They are, so to say, unlettered, and completelydisinterested in their jobs.

The visitors to the libraries of today’s Muslim worldcome in to pass time, to browse through colorfulmagazines, where it is illustrations and photographsthat catch their eye. If they read an article, it will beeither on a sportsman, a celebrity or a film hero.Hardly ever will they borrow any book. The old reli-gious manuscript-type of priceless volumes, whichcould be sold to the Western libraries at good price,are of no use to them.

In consequence, good authors and their knowledge-bearing books have disappeared from bookstores,from printing presses. Not a single readable title hasappeared in Indiain any language since about 30years. For the non-Arab world, Arabic has become alanguage of the Martians. After the standards oflearning were lowered when books began being writ-ten in Urdu, Malay, and other vernaculars, whichwere a mere shadow of Arabic books, now it is theturn of books in English, which are shadows of shad-ows. The language of these English books seems tobe in an English which has been invented anew. Thelanguage is poor, diction defective, expressionsvague, sentences enigmatic, and the text most bor-ing.

Such is also the quality of religious literature avail-able on the fantastic,the beloved, authoritative, mod-ern source of deep knowledge and profoundlearning: the Net. To sink anyone into an ocean ofignorance and stupidity, a man may be advised toobtain his knowledge of Islamic disciplines from theliterature on the Net – a Sanctum Santorum of thedisputants in support of their deviant opinions.At the international level, but, once again, specifi-cally in the non-Arab world, the graph indicating thelevel of Muslim ignorance has been rising up, andup, steadily, and it seems it will soon become com-pletely vertical.

No Jamaàh, group, or study-circle pays any atten-tion to qualitative learning. At best they indulge in,as a Western writer aptly described, “ever more per-fect re-statement of the stated.” The halaqas are agood place for a little nap. The speeches are what


History

you would have heard in your childhood. When theyspeak of knowledge, they mean acquaintance withwhat their founding fathers wrote. Their’s is the finalauthority, and their books the Bible. To differ withthem is to commit Kufr. To criticize a Jamaàh is toask for an exit ticket. To talk of Arabic, is like talk-ing of Sanskrit. Qur’an and Sunnah are slogans tohelp netfresh adherents.The latest victim of the car-rion call is handed over pamphlets, instead of thepromised Qur’an and Sunnah. To differ with thestatements, guidelines and fatwas of the minor con-temporary scholars of those pamphlets, who are notknown outside their countries, but because of thepropagandists, is abidàh. To criticize the renownedscholars of the past, of outstanding repute, is theSunnah faithfully followed by members of theJamaàh. The Lilliputian who most loudly criticizesthe most learned of the past, is the winner of thehotly contested leadership in his group.

Hardly are the Muslims of today aware that scholarsof the West having lost hope in their own life, cul-ture and society, that they will ever recover from theon-going decline, are now reading more and more ofthose books whose titles are unknown to the mod-ern-day Muslims. Most new biographies of theProphet are being written by Western intellectuals.Thorough going, well researched articles on Islamictopics are being produced by Western writers. Thebest civil, economic, political and even religious as-pects of Islam and Muslims of the past and present,are being explored by Westerners. As an example, asingle academic Western site offers as its weeklycontribution 10 books and articles concerned withIslam. Leave alone the contents, many titles are be-yond the comprehension of today’sargumentativeprotagonist of Islam:

1. The Identity of the Sabians: Some Insights, DovSchwartz and Raphael Jospe (eds.),2. [Toward] Abstract Models for Islamic History(working paper), by Maxim Romanov | Bookmarkedby Fatma KIZIL3. Tafsir and Islamic Intellectual History: Exploringthe Boundaries of a Genre, by Andreas Goerke |Bookmarked by Fatma KIZIL4.Violence in Islam, by Michael Schmidt5.Trying Islam: Muslims before the European Courtof Human Rights, by TuranKayaoglu6. Three Takes on Islamophobia, by TuranKayaoglu.International Sociology. 27(5): 509-515,7. Structural changes in the settlement geography ofMedina, by Mehran Esmaeili

8. “What’s there under your hijab?” What do Inter-national Muslim Graduate Students in the U.S. re-port about…? by Methal Marzouk9. The Education of Islamic Boarding Schools; Reli-gious Humanism Perspective Study by Mukodi Dr10. Auto-Bio/Ethnography as a Curriculum in Cross-Culture Communication: A Voice from the OtherShore by MethalMarzouk

(https://blu176.mail.live.com/?tid=cmj8n6aUOi5BGiVQAjfeM0hg2&fid=flinbox)

Leslie Hazleton – a British Jewess – delivered aspeech at TED, on the Qur’an, in the 20 allottedminutes, without referring to any note carried in thehand, that astonished many a Muslim. Describing thebeauty and power of the Qur’an, in such exemplaryrhetoric, she did what no Muslim scholar of Arab ornon-Arab world is capable of delivering today.Rumi’s mystical poetry rendered into English, arethe best-selling titles in the West. Shah Waliyullah’sdifficult classic, “Hujjatullah al-Baligha,” is now ofsuch interest that it sees a translation – for the firsttime – into English by the learned society inBrill,Holland. Books of other similar renowned Muslimscholars of the past are in the pipeline. The texts ofsuch books are, for today’s Muslims, filled with suchriddles as to tire them out by the third line – but theyare of interest to those who are looking at how theycould benefit from them.

There isn’t any quick-fix solution to the problem ofrising ignorance, not among the common people, butamong those who think they are educated. Scholars,Da`wah workers, Jamaaàatsand anyone concerned,need to shove back their differences and coura-geously take up the task of educating the Ummah’seducated class. A hundred thousand mosques con-ducting classes in basic Arabic language and deliver-ing Dars on Hadith on weekly basis, for next tenyears, will turn the tides; (yes, dars al-hadith and notthe Qur’an, because once a man learns a bit of Ara-bic, his attachment to the Qur’an grows). It mightsound a stupendous task, but Muslims of the pasthave demonstrated their penchant for stupendoustasks.

http://www.youngmuslimdigest.com/editorial/02/2015/civilization-not-belong/

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I By Israrul Haque I

How can we expect to bridge the ever deepening dif-ferences between the fiercely angry Islamic worldand the West, whereby the Islamic world viewsAmerica and the West as imperialist regimes tryingto suppress Islamic propagation and values whereasthe West undoubtedly considers every practicingMuslim and freedom fighter as extremist?

The issue is that at the moment the difference hasbecome so large that the Islamic world thinks thatthe West is targeting Islam as a religion, while theWest thinks that Islam as a religion is a religion ofextremism and intolerance and confrontation.

My conviction is as I am a firm believer of a twopronged strategy currently required to be executed,one of the prongs of this strategy is to be executedby the Islamic world, in that we have to crystallizeour thoughts, we have to decide whether the wayforward is a way of confrontation, extremism, mili-tancy. Or the way forward is one of human develop-ment, of emancipation of the Muslim world, whichis the worst off at the moment in all-social indica-tors. So therefore having addressed political dis-putes, poverty and education we would beaddressing the core issue which leads to extremism,fundamentalism and militancy. Thus, the goal of themoderate Muslim is to develop, establish and nurturea society driven by Faith, not by the fear of the Is-lamophobes. The point is that the structure of thegovernment becomes secondary to this goal.

Unfortunately, there is no model in the world exceptwhat was established by Prophet Mohammed PBUHand his immediate companions. Each of the majorgovernments in the so-called "Muslim world," re-gardless of their claims, has drifted from this founda-tion. A full range of political systems exist within theMuslim world - from out and out dictatorship inEgypt/Syria etc (for example) to relatively liberaldemocracy in Malaysia.

The simple fact is that all the governance systems inplace in the Muslim world, including Malaysia, con-tradict Islam and seek to marginalize it in favour ofsecular western models of statehood and statecraft.This is demonstrated by the fact that none of theconstitutions of the states (except K.S.A) represent-

ing the Muslim peoples is based on the Qur’an andthe Sunnah, indeed, none of the states in questiondare claim that they are the embodiment of Islam or,at least what is needed to constitute an Islamic nationor polity, facilitating Muslims to live by Islam. Be-cause the so-called moderates´ grasp of political as-pects of Islam is so poor and because they carry theconcept of statehood and statecraft inculcated intothem in the form of non-Islamic western models,there is no hope that these intellectuals are a sourceof enlightenment. The heart of success lies in bring-ing a system where man is not sovereign, becausethe results of that are too clear for us to see. A sover-eign man decides what is right and wrong accordingto his interests. Hence from genocides to open ex-ploitation, colonialism is a constant feature of demo-cratic states.

In India, thousands of Muslims were killed, are theyasking anything about that? And by the way nothinghas happened there. Missionaries have been killed inIndia also, Muslims have been killed - Sikhs havebeen killed. But they are the most democratic andthe most secular state that the world recognizes.

Muslims never built gas chambers or systematicmassacres of non-Muslims, they certainly would nothave used nuclear weapons on a nation that was onits knees. Why? Because the Islam do not driveman’s lustful desires to gain control of other nationsby any means necessary: Certainly the way forwardis one, as I call it, enlightened moderation. Now thisis what we need to analyze in the Islamic world andadopt the course of enlightened moderation by estab-lishing all over the Islamic world a real, just, pro-gressive Islamic welfare states based on the principleof justice, equality, brotherhood, and freedom.On the other hand, the single strategy to be executedonly by the Islamic world will not work. Thereforethe west has to deliver the other prong of the strat-egy. And the second prong has to be delivered by thewest is, that all political disputes all of them involveMuslims unfortunately and they seem to be on thereceiving end, must be resolved with justice and thisjustice needs to be seen to be done to the Muslimworld not just talked or deliberated.

*The writer is a senior faculty at Healthcare Administration ProgramBatterjee Medical College of Science & Technology North Obhur Jed-dah and can be reached [email protected].

Human Rights & Human wrongs


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Males and Females:

"Just Friends"?By Nabila Rizvi (edited)


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After a long day of hard work with your peerson a project, a sister suggests that all of youhang out at the pizza place nearby for a late

lunch. The problem is, your group of peers is madeup of both guys and girls. "But we're all friends!"protests the sister when you, as a brother, bring upthe issue.

So you think about it and agree, because after all,you say – "She's like a sister to me."

Key phrase here: "like a sister." She isn't really yoursister, which means that there are limitations in howyou relate to her. Nowadays, under the guise of Is-lamic brotherhood and sisterhood, many are unfortu-nately committing sins in the name of friendship.Islam, however, does not permit such close relation-ships between non-Mahrams.

Of course, living in the West, there are times whennon-Mahrams do interact – but there is a differencebetween how we do so with our colleagues and withour friends. We interact on a regular basis with ourcolleagues regarding the work that has brought us to-gether on a professional level. We also interact regu-larly with our friends, but our topics of conversationare not restricted to just business. Furthermore, wespend time with our colleagues at university or at theworkplace – basically, any place that is relevant tobusiness meetings. However, we can meet ourfriends in both formal and informal settings.

Our colleagues and friends are not one and the same.Keeping that in mind, we are supposed to interactwith non-Mahrams as colleagues, not as friends. Un-necessarily spending time with non-Mahrams –doing things like hanging out or having long conver-sations just to kill time – is out of the question, be-cause that is what we would do with a friend.

Islam on Cross-Gender Friendships

As Muslims, everything we do is with the intentionof gaining the pleasure of our Creator. We are sup-posed to be constantly aware of the presence ofAllah, and to strive to get closer to our Beloved byfollowing the teachings of the Prophet and his Ahlul

Bayt (peace be upon them). In line with those teach-ings, the concept of Hijab for men and women is oneof the fundamental aspects of Islam. When it comesdown to the core of the matter, all forms of Hijab arefor the purpose of maintaining God-consciousness

and respect when we interact with non-Mahrams outof necessity.

However, mixing with non-Mahrams and going outof our way to spend time with them obviously defiesthose ideals of Hijab. It's as simple as this: brothersand sisters who are not Mahram to each other are notsupposed to interact when there is no point in doingso, and any interaction that does take place is sup-posed to be done in a professional manner. Conclu-sively, the idea of non-Mahram boys and girlsspending time together as "friends" is not endorsedby Islam.

Also, we need to realize that being Muslim doesn'tmake us immune to falling into sin. Just because asister wears a headscarf and a brother sports a beard


does not mean it is okay for them to become friends.As Muslims, we are instructed to follow guidelinesfor our own benefit, and in this situation too there iswisdom. Just as we are to abstain from sitting at atable that has alcohol bottles on it and just as we areto abstain from listening to music, we are to abstainfrom developing non-Mahram friendships because ofthe greater sins that we could be led to commit.

Studies on Cross-Gender Friendships

Allah is the One who created us, and He knows thedetails of the human system better than we can everdiscover. It stands to reason that whatever He com-mands us to do and to stay away from is logical, be-cause Hewould not askof us some-thing that isimpossible todo or that isharmful forus.Whether ornot we ac-knowledge it,there is a sci-entific aspectof attractionin cross-gen-der "friend-ships". Ourbrains releasechemicalsupon interac-tion with oth-ers, and theamount re-leased in-creases as wespend moretime with aperson of the opposite gender. We are fooling our-selves if we try to ignore these facts and be "justfriends" with non-Mahrams, because then we will betreading thin ice over a sea of sin in which we willlose focus on our journey of getting closer to theAlmighty.More often than not, it seems that befriending some-one of the opposite gender has become the first stepto eventually turning the friendship into a more inti-mate relationship. So whether or not it is clearlystated aloud by the non-Mahram individuals them-

selves, studies show that non-Mahram friendshipsare, in reality, made for inappropriate reasons.

But..

"What's so wrong about it?" That question is usuallyfollowed by excuse after excuse, yet each reason thatis always given has many flaws. Non-Mahramfriendships are not permitted in Islam, no matter howmuch one may try to justify them by saying, "But..."

"It's a normal thing these days."

Everyone is best friends with a person of the oppo-site gender these days, so what's the big deal if we

go with theflow? The bigdeal is that it'swrong. Just be-cause everyoneelse is doingsomething, thatdoesn't make itright.

In order to pro-mote a lifestyleof selfishnessand immorality,society pres-sures the publicfrom all around.Be it throughsit-coms, books,movies, or real-life examples,we are facedwith a smorgas-bord of prac-tices that havebecome com-mon. This idea

of "friends with benefits" – the concept of having afriend of the opposite gender with whom one hasphysically intimate relations, while both still con-sider each other to be "just friends" – has permeatedthe fabric of our society, so much that it is no longerconsidered wrong. Yet the relation of "friends withbenefits" does not truly provide anything but mo-mentary pleasure; it destroys the moral compass bypromoting easy indulgence in carnal desires, it shat-ters the honorable concept of being committed toone person, and it severely blackens the soul by

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gaining the displeasure of Allah.

As mentioned in the above scientific studies, thequestion of "what if we were more than justfriends?" is always in the air. So why go through allthat doubt and put ourselves in a situation that has agreat potential to become sinful?

"I know my intentions are pure."

First of all, what does it even mean to "have a pureintention" when it comes to being friends with anon-Mahram? Second of all, even if you have no illintentions, Shaitan has promised to mislead any per-son that he can, so what makes you think you're im-mune to his whispers? We have already been clearlywarned in the Holy Qur'an, "Did I not charge you, Ochildren of Adam, that you should not serve theShaitan? Surely he is your open enemy." (36:60) Wehave to be on guard and be able to abstain from situ-ations that are not only spiritually harmful but evenpotentially spiritually harmful.Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Sistani's response to this canbe found in his book, A Code of Practice for Mus-lims in the West:

328. Question: Is it permissible for a Muslimyouth to accompany the girls who study with himin foreign universities for walking together, in va-cation tours, etc.?

Answer: It is not permissible, except with surety thathe will not commit a forbidden act.To have absolute surety of oneself is the conditionhere, and not everyone can claim this sense of surety.In order to qualify for such a claim, one would haveto be the kind of person who – at the very least – hasimpeccable God-consciousness and Hijab in that(s)he keeps the gaze lowered, does not participate inidle chatter, and has control over his/her thoughtsfrom wandering into inappropriate territory. Eventhen, the manner in which such a person would inter-act with non-Mahrams would end up falling underthe "colleague" category and not that of "friend". Re-calling the manner of our Infallibles (peace be uponthem all), they fit this pious description perfectly andhad the strongest of faith, yet we do not see evidenceof them ever having befriended non-Mahrams orhaving spent time with them without official rea-sons.

And assuming that our intentions are pure, whatabout the intentions of our non-Mahram friend? We

cannot claim to be absolutely sure of his/her inten-tions, so it doesn't make sense to put ourselves inthat situation. It's one thing to be confident in thestrength of our faith in the face of temptations thatmay arise; however, it is entirely foolish (not to men-tion outright vain) to be so confident in the strengthof our faith that we voluntarily dive right into a situ-ation that is wrought with potential sin.Ultimately, all our actions are supposed to be basedon whether or not they will please Allah and take uscloser to Him. Having a non-Mahram friend doesneither.

"I'm engaged/married/older than him/youngerthan her, so it's okay."

All those factors make no difference. Again, we arereminded by Allah, the Prophets, and the Ahlul Baytthat Shaitan is our open enemy who attacks from allsides. He targets everyone, so being engaged, mar-ried, older than the brother, or younger than the sis-ter does not make a difference.In fact, for an engaged/married person to befriend anon-Mahram would only cause misunderstandingsand problems. In the study by Kaplan and Keys, par-ticipants who were already involved in a relationshipreported that their attraction towards non-Mahramfriends was less, relative to those who were single. A


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point worth noting is that the word used in referenceto the level of attraction was "less" not "none", sothere is still the potential for falling into sin. Just asthe engaged/married factor, the older/younger factorwould cause a person to let down his/her guard,leaving an opening for Shaitan to easily enterthrough.

"It's a good way to learn how boyss/girls think soI can relate with my future spouse better."

A practicespouse? That'sjust plainwrong. Many ofthe officialstudies, such asApril Bleskeand DavidBuss' "Can Menand Women beJust Friends?"(2000) in theJournal of theInternationalAssociation forRelationshipResearch, aswell as infor-mal interviewsall reveal thatmen andwomen see thisas one of themain beneficialreasons for hav-ing non-Mahramfriends. Byspending timewith a non-Mahram friend, people claim that they can pick uptips on how to improve their relationship with theirpartner. So a person spends time both with a non-Mahram friend and with his/her spouse, talks overimportant issues with both, and is intimate with both– and according to the studies already mentioned, thelevel of intimacy with both is actually equal for amajority of cases. But then what's the difference be-tween your close friend of the opposite gender andyour spouse?

Prevention, Not Cure

There is no truth to this fashion of non-Mahramsbeing just good friends. Getting into such a tainted"friendship" will only cause problems on multiplelevels. A person may be able to control theirthoughts and desires, but after repeatedly meeting anon-Mahram in an unstructured setting to spend timeas friends, the battle against the self becomes in-creasingly difficult. With regard to one thing leadingto another, the Leader of the Pious, Imam Ali (peace

be upon him)said: "Simplythinking aboutsinful carnaldeeds encour-ages you tocommit themeventually."(Ghurar al-Hikam, p. 518)Islam is aboutlooking aheadand being wiseto the on-goingsaround us.Some things areforbidden to usbecause theyare harmful inessence, andother things areforbidden be-cause they leadto harmfulthings. Here,we have a situa-tion that isharmful in itselfand that willalso lead us toeven greater

harm in this world and in the next.

We are taught to surround ourselves with friendswho inspire us to strive even closer towards Allah,not with those because of whom we risk falling intosin. We must not let our desires direct our actions;rather, we must let our God-consciousness guide ustowards what is pleasing to Him and thus beneficialfor us. So let's not fool ourselves, because non-Mahram boys and girls can't be "just friends".

---


The Bank Indonesia initiative to formulateCore Principles of Zakat Management is on.According to the Working Group entrusted

with this responsibility, the policy document shouldserve “as a starting point for the frameworks andstandards of zakat-based governance best prac-tices…and to improve the quality of the zakat sys-tems by identifying such weaknesses in the existingof supervision and regulation”. As a contribution tothe on-going deliberations, the draft document isbeing subjected to a review. The entire documentmay be downloaded from this link at the DiwanZakat Sudan portal.Relevant excerpts were also pre-sented in an earlier blog. A quick review of the docu-ment raises certain important questions that shouldbe addressed before setting out the principles.

The policy document under review states:

“Core Principles on Governance for Zakat Manage-ment aim to adapt the existing internationally recog-nized frameworks of the Basel Core Principles(BCPs). The Basel Core Principles (BCPs) (Down-load the Basel core principles for effective bankingsupervision here) are the minimum standards forsound prudential regulation and supervision of banksand banking systems. The BCPs have already beenconducted as a banking quality benchmark in morethan 150 countries, so that the BCPs may representthe best role model for assessing the quality of thesupervisory practices. By adapting the BCPs, theZakat Core Principles represent an internationalstandard of high-level principles to achieve and as-sess Zakat supervisory practices. This section adaptsthe 29 Basel Core Principles that were last revised inSeptember 2012.” Indeed, the above approach and methodology ap-pears seriously flawed to me for the following rea-sons:

Uniqueness of a Zakat Institution (ZI)

A zakat institution (ZI) is NOT a bank though it maybe seen to engage in a unique type of financial inter-mediation. It does not buy money. Nor does it sellmoney. It does not owe money. Nor does it lendmoney (exception: zakat-funded credit pool in caseof Akhuwat).

Overstating Interdependence between ZIs

Unlike a bank that operates in an environment of in-terdependence, a ZI can stand on its own. For in-stance, according to some estimates, the EdhiFoundation in Pakistan collects over one-third oftotal zakat collected in the entire country in an envi-ronment of acute trust-deficit with the governmentzakat body and other zakat institutions. The issue of“contagion effect” is of minimal significance for aZI, quite unlike a bank.

Unique Risk Factors with ZIs

Unlike a bank, a ZI is exposed to unique risk factors.Even if some factors appear to be common betweena ZI and a bank, their significance may vary greatly.For example, “country and transfer risk” and “dis-bursement risk” are of far less significance for a ZIas compared to a bank. Given that most ZIs operateon a local or at best national basis, and given that ZIstend not to have long term commitments to pay, theirexposure to the above risks may be somewhat exag-gerated.

Thus, there is perhaps little merit in mimicking theBasel core principles – that are intended for thebanking system – for developing the zakat core prin-ciples. Indeed, the framework for core principles forzakat simply cannot be derived from “common mini-mum” Basel norms for banks. A few other observa-tions that merit serious consideration are as follows:Variations in Zakat Systems

The suggested framework is unduly biased towards asystem where zakat management is characterized byabsence of any element of coercion (zakat is volun-tary) and private institutional participation. Asrightly pointed out in the document there are majorzakat systems (Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan etc.)where zakat payment is compulsory. The rules of thegame dramatically change in such environments forobvious reasons.

Where zakat is compulsory, it is a kind of alternativetax on wealth and income. Compliance is a majorissue. In such a scenario, the difference between a ZIand a bank is stark in terms of raising funds. The for-

Core Principles of Zakat Management:S o m e O b s e r v a t i o n s


mer “imposes” zakat while the latter “attracts” de-posits and other forms of profit-seeking capital.However, when zakat is voluntary, a ZI will also “at-tracts” contributions.

Further, whether zakat is compulsory or voluntary isnot just one of the many features of a zakat system.Rather, the features of a zakat system are dependenton this key principle. I therefore, recommend a hier-archy of principles (see my earlier blog Hierarchy ofCore Principles for Zakat Regulation) rather than amere description of them in the Basel style presenta-tion.

In countries like India and South Africa, the zakatsystem is not only rooted in voluntarism, but alsoprovides unbridled freedom to individual and institu-tional players to manage zakat unlike, say Indonesia.These systems need to provide for self-regulation inline with core principles, and not left to secular char-ity laws as suggested in the document.

Absence of a Zero-Base

Unlike Islamic banking and insurance (for whichAAOIFI and IFSB norms were developed assuminga zero base), zakat and awqaf system developmentcannot assume a zero base. Zakat laws already existin various forms. Where laws are non-existent, zakatflows take place nevertheless, given that zakat isseen as a religious duty. One can assume that thesystem exists in diverse forms.

Any suggested framework therefore, must bemapped unto existing systems to assess the practical-ity of its implementation. For instance, one may ex-amine “in how many countries out of 56 OICcountries, the suggested framework can be imple-mented?” In the face of wide diversity, the suggestedframework must contain features that ensure tremen-dous flexibility and adaptability. This requires seri-ous and systematic research into components ofalternative zakat systems.

Dealing with Diversity

Zakat systems may vary with respect to:• compulsory or voluntary nature of zakat• role of state agencies (Ministry of Finance/ Reli-gious Affairs etc.)• fiscal incentives• cost recovery• role of productive zakat

The core principles may refrain from making spe-cific recommendations. For example, the Disburse-ment-Collection Ratio presented in the documentappears to be a very useful tool for avoiding “zakatholding”. But this may make little sense in the con-text of the Nigerain zakat system where zakat ismostly collected as food grains and are distributed atthe point of collection itself. Principles should notand need not specify the tools. Nor should they beexpressed in terms of the tools, howsoever elegantthey may appear to be. A broader statement of the“core principle” - avoid zakat holding – would besimple and clear.

Indeed if certain country-specificnorms/principles/features are identified and sug-gested as the recommended ones, the policy docu-ment needs to clearly specify this (e.g. a vote forvoluntary and against compulsory zakat).The policy document may also specify clearly whichnorms/ principles/ features are present in a flexibleformat allowing multiple outcomes (e.g. both cen-tralized and decentralized system of management)There are other specific observations regarding indi-vidual Zakat Core Principles to which I will revertlater. However, these would be trivial as compared tothe above issues that are more fundamental in nature.http://sadaqa.in/2015/02/11/core-principles-of-zakat-management-some-observations/


Sadbhavna Mission

I By Dr. Vipin Tripathi I

Friends,I visited Meerut on January 22, 2015, distributed 1000Gandhi fliers, visited Hindu Mahasabha office, talked totwo of their members and saw the site where they planto erect Godse's statue.

I reached Meerut at 10:30 AM by UP Roadways bus. Itwas drizzling yet I was able to give fliers shop to shopand person to person on the road from Ghantaghar toFaiz e Aam Inter College. At 12: 15 I met college teach-ers and some students. The classes had ended an hourago hence most students had gone. In half an hour Dr.Majeed, a prominent dentist and KhudaiKhidmatgar ac-tivist who had organized our program at Town HallGandhi Statue 10 days ago, arrived.

He took me to Hindu Mahasabha office. It is a smallcompound, with a deserted look. On the backside isHindu Mahasabha office with takhat and chairs. On theleft side of the compound (when viewed facing the of-fice) is a small temple (that was closed at that time) andon the right is open space 20 feet by 10 feet whereBhoomiPoojan for Godse's statue was performed fewweeks ago. There were two people in the office, one oldman and another in his thirties or forties dealing with oldcars. I asked him why do they want to install Godse'sstatue.

He said, "Godse was our leader. And to show respect toour leader we are doing it.

I said, "Was not Godse in RSS?"

He sad, "He was originally in Hindu Mahasabha. Forsome time he was in RSS then came back to Ma-hasabha."

I said, "Worshipping Godse is fine. Every body has likesand dislikes. But why do you condone Gandhi's assassi-nation? Even if you do that it does not hurt him as he isno more. But the deadly fire , in quelling which Gandhidied, stares at people. And that is very serous"

He said,"Why did Gandhi sign the partition papers?"

I said,"Gandhi was not the office bearer of Congress.How could he sign? The seeds of partition were sown inthe aftermath of 1857 when British returned to power.They pampered communalists. Savarkar, who earlierwas a patriot, changed his plank. He became subservientto British. After the noncooperation movement, whenfreedom movement gained support of the masses, HinduMahasabha, Muslim League and RSS raised the sectar-

ian ideology."

He said, " Godse died for Akhand Bharat. Now whenpartition has taken place, why don't Muslims go to Pak-istan?"

I said, "How can you talk of Akhand Bharat when youhate one fourth of your countrymen. Probably he wasobsessed by geographical boundaries. Partition wasmerely the division of political power. How could youdivide people? How could you transfer the land, themeans of sustenance of people and people themselvesfrom one territory to another? Masses had no say in par-tition. It was the massive violence that set in and divi-sion of political power was enforced. Never take massesfor the political power. Now there is even a biggerpower entity the market forces. They dictate terms topolity. They control resources, markets and lives of peo-ple, Godse or Gandhi are only a small part of yourbeing. We will not be judged by our heroes, but by ourown conduct and behavior. Let us keep masses intofocus. They are already suffering from severe exploita-tion. None of our actions should aggravate their prob-lems."

He did not feel offended and asked for my phone num-ber. I gave him my flier, "Gandhi, mehnatkashaurrais".

From there Dr. Majid took me to Ismail Women DegreeCollege. It is a very special college where 50% girls areMuslims, 40-45% Hindus and rest Christians and Sikhs.Faculty and management are mostly Hindus. It has aGandhi study Center. I wanted to meet teachers and stu-dents but examination was going on hence I could meetonly some people. Dr. Majid took me to his clinic whereDr. HashimAzim and one more friend joined. Later wewent to meet Abdul QayyumAlvi sahib. We held heart-ening discussions. After that I left and continued withflier distribution. At 5 PM I took a bus to Delhi. At Mod-inagar bus stop, Dr. Vijay Garg came to see me. I gavehim 150 fliers for dissemination at Modi College. In thebus 75 years old Mohammad Zaqir, was sitting by myside. His liberal views pleased me immensely. Onreaching Kashmiri Gate I took metro to Hauzkhas. Itwas 7:30 PM and there was not much rush in the metro.I distributed 150 fliers and most people read them withinterest.

Tomorrow we will hold Republic Day PrabhatPheri at6:30 AM in IIT Campus. At 9:30 we take out prabhat-pheri in Trilokpuri, Delhi.In the night I will leave for Vidisha to conduct 2-DayHeat Workshop for B.Sc. students at Women DegreeCollege.

Dr. VipinTripathi visits the proposed Godse statue location


I By Manzurul Haque I

As a supporter of Aam Admi Party, I do notindulge in the job of predicting its victory inDelhi elections. I intensely desire it to win.

Every move of mine is loaded, to give a push to thevictory process, including this write-up. I am notneutral. I am not a journalist. I am in fact biased infavor of AAP. But I have my reasons.

I wouldn’t have written this piece, had I not seen aglimmer of hope that AAP might perhaps win. Thisfeeble hope has filled in me such a strong longing tolet my emotions fly, that I cannot help myself fromholding my pen tonight. Yes, I am not on my com-puter.

I will have to discount anumber of things first. I amnot a ‘khas’ admi, which inother words means, I am anaamadmi, but worse is , Iam going to remain so, be-cause I have already con-cluded my life with thisterse verse, “Born. Why?Lived nigh.Died I!” I amalso a pensioner whichhelps me in the manner, Ihave described somewhere,“ How lucking I was, tohave lived life, Behind theiron curtains of an ArmedForce; and thus earned mypension, To ward me off –the fate of a poet!”. Doubt-less, I am writing all this preface, to protect myselffrom the ‘Abuser-Brigade’ of India, for my trying to‘defend the indefensible’, which I have done in thepast as well, if you will please recall.

When I see my life to have come to a full stop al-ready, why do I extend my arm into the affairs of theworld, is a natural question to ask. Well, I will an-swer. I see LIFE as a continuation, as something ex-tending beyond life. It will not end with me. And Ilove LIFE.

I am pitted against great personal odds as well, be-cause as a young boy, I was a Xavierian of Ranchi,and as an old boy, I was surrounded by comrade-in-arms of the CRPF. Most of them have known me asdear Manzurul (never actually uttered the prefix, butsomehow I always felt I heard this). Now I know,what I am going to write may not sound music toquite a number of them (though I do not expect any-one to exclaim, ‘you too Manzurul’ simply becauseof absence of context), because in my attempt tobrush my shoulders with Truth, I really have nochoice. The questions relate to LIFE and are too im-portant to allow the personal discomfiture to step in.Besides, as a Gandhian, I cannot just shy away froma struggle. I think my readers must be anxious to belooking for a subject-matter, a title of the topic, so let

me describe the title as‘The Perils of Being an In-dian Muslim’.

THE PERILS OF BEINGAN INDIAN MUSLIM

A friend and a senior AAPleader of Jharkhand, wastaken aback, in his sheersincerity of course, to hearthe ‘Muslim’ word fromme, because in his veryhonest opinion, I shouldhave been above this ques-tion. My credentials, ac-cording to him, werestrong enough to let meplay a full-blooded role inthe national life of India

and AAP certainly was a platform that would wel-come someone like me without any backgroundcheck. Friends, the issue is not that flimsy for me ei-ther. I want to grapple the devil by the horn. I standfor “redefining of the personality of Indian nation”and to reach the core of ‘this’ topic, my topic of ‘ThePerils of Being an Indian Muslim’ is just an opening,a gateway. My topic is just the name of the ‘dar-waza’ of the citadel, through which to enter the ques-tion-land. May be this Aam Admi (me, here), isspecially privileged to stand as a ‘darban’ of the‘darwaza’ and is under duty to usher you,all of you,

The Perils of Being an Indian Muslim


very important persons in my life - into the citadel.Believe me; I have no problem in continuing to standas a ‘darban’, after all of you have gone in, if there isshortage of space inside. I am quite happy to stand atthe gate.

Let me explain the abstracts in greater detail. Thequestion of ‘Indian nationalism’ is under question. Awhole lot of us Indians have little respect left, for thecurrent definition of nationalism. Secular national-ism as mentioned in the Constitution of India hasbeen rubbished as pseudo-secularism. BJP, aided andabetted by other Hindutva outfits, are trying to rede-fine Indian nationalism by invoking Hindu pride andlots of folktales, but worse so, by alluding to Mus-lim’s disregard for Hinduism – without howeverchecking the facts with Muslims. I think there was acase for Muslims to be heard, not only for the sakeof Muslims’ well-being alone, but also to keep thedebate of ‘redefining Indian nationalism’ on an evenkeel. Whenever Indian nationalism is on the discus-sion table, the Hindutva forces would push the Mus-lim question (appeasement, terrorism, disloyalty etc.etc.) on to the center-stage, obscuring the actual de-bate. That gives them an opportunity to define Indiannationalism in their own way, without a debate.

Through the medium of AAP, I want the Muslimquestion to be relegated to the margins of nationallife – to the very gates of the citadel. India is a Hinducountry. Muslims cannot, will not and do not dislikeHindus. They find themselves not very differentfrom Hindus except in a very narrow area of the‘methods of worship and certain observances’,which have to do with their life-after-death, withoutin any way impinging on the resources of this life.Muslims are wise enough to understand their placein the material life of India. They just want to live ashumans with their life, liberty and self-respect intact.If someone like Dr. ZakirNaik is dreaming of prose-lytizing India – I have no hesitation in saying thatsuch rogue elements are playing into the hands of theBJP and the RSS – for purpose. From day one, Ihave warned AAP not to espouse Muslim ‘dalals’(Remember, my diatribe against AAP leaders for vis-iting the traditional power brokers of Muslims) withskull-cap and beard. If you, as a Hindu are lookingfor symbolic pious Muslim faces I can help. I am notsaying I am one such Muslim because I am clean-shaven, without a skull-cap, but I am Muslimenough to help you identify a pious Muslim. For ex-ample, we Muslims, look for ‘noor in the face’ of aperson, when we look for a pious person. A Muslim

can have his skull-cap and his beard, but he cannotbring in the ‘noor’ (without being truly pious) thatwe Muslims instinctively identify. When politicalparties bring in Muslim faces on to the dais, take it,that Muslims vomit at their sights. But above all, apious Muslim will be the first to dismiss all politicalquestions of life. The search for a Muslim face isthus futile, and a waste of energy and resources bythe political parties, arising from the lack of under-standing of Muslim psyche. Actually, it’s flunkyMuslims like us, who can articulate the real Muslimissues, but if you want me to wear a skull-cap andbeard for this reason alone, I shall not. I am not thatflunky. So ladies and gentlemen, from the rampartsof my computer table (yes, I am typing now), Ihereby proclaim that the biggest Muslim issue is,that there is no Muslim issue, when it comes to de-bating and defining the true nature of Indian nation-alism by the 85% of Indians. Muslims stand asbystanders because of historical reasons, while pray-ing that the 85% of Indian population settle the ques-tion of Indian nationalism in favor of an inclusivenationalism, the kind of nationalism already definedby the old Congress Party in the Constitution ofIndia, but rarely believed by the Party itself. I am al-most sure that AAP will honor the Indian national-ism as defined in the Constitution of India and thismuch serves my full purpose as an Indian Muslim.The peril of my being an Indian Muslim is that I amface to face with the prospect of losing my national-ism as defined in the Constitution. I hope, friendswho have loved me, and all such Hindus who haveloved their Muslim friends and neighbors, under-stand that the push is actually against their Muslimfriends. If Hindus as a majority community findsome aberrations in Muslims, they do have the rightto nudge them to correct their course in a truly broth-erly manner. If you are in AAP, you must understandwhat it means to be in AAP, what it means to sing –‘Insaankainsaan se ho bhaichara,yehipaighamhamara’. I would like you to recall thewords of Swami Vivekananda that for its renaissance‘India needs the body of a Muslim and soul of aHindu’. I know so much of poison has already goneinto the gut, that clear thinking is blurred in our na-tional life. But please give your hope a chance,through AAP.

Manzurul Haque,Date: 03.02.2015Email: [email protected]


I By Ram Puniyani I

With the new ruling dispensation, Modi Sarkar,attempts are being made to present Gandhi in alight which is favorable to the RSS combine.

First, the SwachataAbhiyan(Cleanliness drive) wasinaugurated on Gandhi Jayanti 2nd October, then itwas claimed that RSS hadnothing to do with Gandhi’sassassin NathuramGodse.Now; efforts are on to ex-tract a certificate fromGandhi on the lines whichshould mean that Gandhithought ‘RSS very good’.In this direction a multime-dia program is being shownin ‘DandiKutir’ which wasinaugurated by the PrimeMinister Mr. Modi recently,(January 2015). In this mul-timedia presentation in theexhibition it is claimed thatGandhi had come to RSScamp in Wardha in 1930,along with GhanshyamdasBirla. Gandhi was very im-pressed by its functioningof RSS and wanted to meetDr. Hedgewar, the founderof RSS. As per these claimsMahatma did meet the RSSfounder the next day.

Irrespective of these claimsthe definitive knowledge issomething else. On one sidewhat is known is that RSSwas very critical ofGandhi’s politics, his broadening of the nationalmovement to include the average people of the coun-try in the noncooperation movement. This move-ment was the major event which awakened thepeople of India and linked them with anti Britishmovement. This was the major landmark in the steptowards ‘India as a nation in the making’. This majorphenomenon of Indian nationalism came underheavy criticism from RSS leadership. RSS founder

was critical of Gandhi for his efforts in the directionof ‘Hindu Muslim unity’ and this mass movement,non cooperation movement. Hedgewar went on towrite, ‘As a result of non cooperation movement ofMahatma Gandhi, the enthusiasm in the country wascooling down and the evils of social life, which thatmovement generated, were menacingly raising their

head. ‘As per him ‘it is dueto this movement that Brah-min–non Brahmin conflictwas nakedly on view’.(C.P.Bhishikar in Ke-shavSanghNirmata, Pune1979, p 7) What he is call-ing Brahmin-Non Brahminconflict was actually thestruggle of dalits for theirlands rights and social dig-nity, for change in gradedhierarchy of caste.Hedgekar, true to the RSSideology of upholding thevalues of declining-pre-in-dustrial social system wasagainst the movement. Thisnon Brahman movementwas actually challengingthe status quo of caste rela-tionships in the society.

Hedgewar’s successor, Gol-walkar, went further to crit-icize the Indian nationalmovement as being just antiBritish. Golwalkar writes,‘The theories of territorialnationalism and commondanger, which formed thebasis of our concept of na-

tion, had deprived us of the positive and inspiringcontent of our real Hindu nationhood…AntiBritishism was equated with patriotism and national-ism, this reactionary view had disastrous effectsupon the entire course of freedom movement, itsleaders and its people.” (Bunch of thoughts Banga-lore 1996, p. 138) This is so far as what Sanghthought of Gandhi and his struggles for uniting‘India as a Nation state’ with the ideology of Indian

What was Gandhi’s Evaluation ofRSS?

Sadbhavna Mission


nationalism.

Now how did Gandhi look at RSS? As RSS for longwas working ‘quietly’, there are not too many refer-ences about the role of RSS during this period. Alsosince it was not a part of National movement wecan’t comment about its role in that movement.However whatever one can glean from the availablesources one can say that Gandhi’s thoughts were notfavorable to RSS. In Harijan on 9th August 1942,Gandhi writes, “I had heard of the RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh and its activities; and alsoknow that it was a communal organization”, thiswas in response to the slogans and some speechagainst ‘other’ community, about which a complaintwas made.In thisGandhi isreferring tothe drill ofRSS volun-teers, whoshoutedthat thisNation be-longs toHindusalone andonce theBritishleave wewill subju-gate thenon Hin-dus. In re-sponse tothe rowdy-ism in-dulged bycommunalorganizations he writes, “I hear many things aboutRSS. I have heard it said the Sangh is at the root ofall this mischief.”(Gandhi, xcviii, 320-322)

Amongst the recorded opinions about Gandhi’sevaluation of RSS, the most authentic is the one ofhis secretary Pyarelal. Pyarelal narrates an event inthe wake of 1946 riots. A member of Gandhi’s en-tourage had praised the efficiency, discipline,courage and capacity for hard work shown by RSScadres at Wagah, a major transit camp for Punjabrefugees. Gandhi quipped back, ‘but don’t forget,

even so had Hitler’s Nazis and Fascists under Mus-solini’ Gandhi characterized RSS as a communalbody with a totalitarian outlook’ (Pyarelal, Ma-hatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, Ahmadabad, page440)

After independence, in the context of Delhi vio-lence (Rajmohan Gandhi, Mohandas, page 642),Gandhi confronted the RSS chief Golwalkar, withreports of the RSS hand in Delhi violence, Denyingthe allegations Golwalkar also said that RSS did notstand for killing the Muslims. Gandhi asked him tosay so publically. Golwalkar said Gandhi couldquote him on this. Gandhi did this in his prayer talkthat evening, but he told Golwalkar that statement

ought to comefrom him. Laterhe told Nehruthat he did notfind Golwalkarconvincing.’

Today havingoccupied theseat of power,RSS is desper-ate to link itselfto the legacy offreedom move-ment fromwhich it hadkept aloof. Ithad criticizedthe freedommovement aspeople from allthe communi-ties were partof It. RSS aimsfor Hindu na-

tion, the way Muslim League’s goal was Muslimnation. Today treading a careful path it wants to ap-propriate Gandhi for which a ‘certificate’ is neededfrom Gandhi. So his sentence is being manipulatedto highlight ‘hard disciplined work’ and to hide therider that ‘so had been the ‘Nazis of Hitler and Fas-cists of Mussolini.’ The basic contradiction in thetwo types of nationalisms should guide us as whatwas Gandhi’s attitude was towards RSS, despite thewell manicured claims from RSS combine.

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Sadbhavna Mission


Politics

I Dr. Mohammad Manzoor Alam I

Now that the AamAadmi Party (AAP) leader ArvindKejriwal is the Chief Minister of Delhi, the people,including Muslims, are naturally looking forward toaction from him to redress their long-standing prob-lems.

Muslims, whosevote percentage inAAP’s favour wasthe highest amongall segments, under-standably expect thatthey would get a fairdeal from the AAPgovernment. Sev-enty percent of thetotal Muslim votewent in favour ofAAP.

It is appropriate tonote here that thiselection brought awelcome relief from the relentless communal mobil-isation by BJP continuing since before the Parlia-mentary election till a few days before the DelhiAssembly polls.

Happily, the Kejriwal campaign sidelined the RSS-driven hate campaign and replaced it with a neutral,non-communal discourse. This led to an improve-ment in the communal situation and provided a non-communal basis to politics.

However, within days of the AAP victory this appar-ent religious neutrality was seen at adverse playwhen the Okhla MLA said in an interview that hewould pursue the Batla House fake encounter case toits logical conclusion.

Within hours AAP leaders disassociated themselvesfrom this perfectly legitimate position of their OkhlaMLA, who happens to be a Muslim. The MLA’s in-sistence on the establishment of rule of law and

curbs on police lawlessness was summarily rejectedas some kind of gesture of “appeasement of Mus-lims”.

This is a dangerous trend as it tends to deligitimisewith a perverse interpretation of religious neutralitythe genuine concerns of a large section of the people.

This seems to sug-gest that AAP willnot indulge in ac-tive persecution ofMuslims, but itwill not help themout of their trou-bles either. This iscertainly a nega-tive approach toMuslims.

Even earlier, soonafter its first vic-tory in 2013, AAPleaders took a sim-ilar stance in an in-teraction at Patna

with a Muslim audience. They said that they did notthink in Hindu-Muslim terms. Hence, they did notbother to address the deprivation and marginalisationof this community.

As things stand today, there is very little hope forany standardised, well-appreciated and well-under-stood political policy like affirmative action to pullMuslims out of their socio-economic difficultiesunder AAP in Delhi state. However, we will keep onreminding this government of its responsibilities to-wards the underprivileged and disadvantaged, toserve whom AAP claims to have come into power.

To begin with, AAP will have to shed its negative in-terpretation of religious neutrality and come to theaid of the section of people so far ignored or perse-cuted by the system.

http://www.iosworld.org/short_takes/A_perverse_in-terpretation.htm

A perverse interpretation ofRELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY

BaKhabar, March 2015

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