Farook Ahmed :
Admittedly, Islam is now the most misunderstood religious thoughts in the world. The western educated Christian and Jews people has a deep-rooted propensity and natural flair to misunderstand and misinterpret the injunctions of the Quran. On the other hand, some ill-educated Islamic clerics out of ignorance expound the teachings of Quran and Hadiths (Traditions of Prophet Muhammad) so erroneously that it causes grave deviation of the tenets of the true faith. These Madrasha educated clerics regard themselves as the final authority on Islamic knowledge. No amount of logic and scientific explanation can budge them an inch from their faulty belief or knowledge. They think that theological lore is their exclusive monopoly. They do not accept any other better and sounder explanations except their own.
These brands of Muslim clerics and the Westerners together have made Islam controversial to the detriment of the whole world. Non-Muslim people across the globe consider Islam as the religion of sword and few Muslims believe that without war and blood-letting Islam cannot survive. These two misconceptions have totally denuded Islam of its benign, peaceful and humanistic character in the eyes of general people. This is our irony that so many good Muslims have to take the blame of misdeeds and mischief of a few derailed leaders of their faith. The bulk of the faithful are not the practicing Muslims. So they do not have even the minimum knowledge of their own religion.
This knowledge-deficit of the common Muslims creates opportunities for the wily clerics to mislead them. Our traditional education system provides no scope for us to learn about Islam. It is an undeniable fact that Islam is being abused and misused in our country for deplorable lack of knowledge on Islam. If we really mean to contain the abuse of Islam, we must enlighten our younger generation on the basic Islamic Knowledge. For this purpose we may incorporate basic teachings of Islam in the syllabi of our schools, colleges and universities. Once our younger generations are cognizant of Islamic knowledge, there will remain less chances of their being misled by the ill-educated fanatic Mullahs.
This measure will certainly save our young people from derailment and restore the glory of our religion. Our own experience tells us that Islam has been harmed more by our half-educated Mullahs than by the Non-Muslims. Now even a lay Muslim is afraid of the sight of beard and burkah which are the traditional outward symbol of Muslim identity. Muslims are now suspects in Non-Muslim societies and their trade mark names instill fear into the minds of the people of other faiths. Westerners are not afraid of Islam, they are generally scared of Muslims who spread poison, hatred and misguide innocent Muslim people to commit vandalism and homicide and extract vengeance on the people of other faiths all in the name of Islam. The three monotheistic religion — Judaism, Christianity and Islam came from the same one God.
Moses, Jesus and Muhammad believed in the one and the same lord and propagated almost identical instructions of their creators. Even a casual reader will find many striking similarities in the holy books of Bible, Torah and the Quran. The holy Quran is the last and the final edition of the Torah and the Bible combined. God revealed the Torah and the Bible for particular sect of people but the Quran was sent for the whole of Mankind. For this reason, God updated the Torah and The Bible and incorporated the updated version into the final book – the Quran. The Torah and the Bible are apolitical holy books. For this reason Christian and Jews rulers who rule over their people find no problems with their Holy books. They can disregard or bypass any instructions of their holy books while governing their own people.
Though the rulers take oaths in the name of God placing their hands on their holy books, they are free to chart the course of their governance according to their own pleasures. So the Bible and the Torah present no impediments or controversies for the rulers and as well as for the ruled. Since the Quran has been sent for the whole of mankind, so God incorporated politics in it so that all the people of the world can live under the same divine political and religious dispensation. This will obviously eliminate injustice and exploitation from the face of the world. Perhaps, this is why Islam comprises the whole of civilized life and living, including political dimensions of social life and spirituality for life here and hereafter.
It enjoins upon its followers to capture political power through peaceful and democratic means. It lays great emphasis on the collective opinions of the people and upholds human dignity. Politics cannot be separated from Islam.
The political tinge of Islam has made it controversial to the people at large because Islamic politics impose God’s commands on the people and provides must-obey guidelines for the rulers to govern the people. It leaves no space for human made politics. Islam is fiercely a monotheistic religion. It does not approve other way of life – personal or social.
Bible and Torah guide only the personal and social lives of its adherents. So the Christian and Jewish societies can have secularism in their political environment. But Islam is different in this respect. Islam sternly regulates individual, social and political lives of its followers. Procedures of governance flows from political theories. Since the Quran provides political guidelines for governance, so secularism is totally non-existent in the Islamic political milieu. Islam equates secularism with apostasy which is a grave sin in Islam. Some Islamic political thinkers maintain that religion has to be banished to attain secularism. The word secularism adorns the constitutions of many countries. But still we do not know what the real face of secularism is. The Muslims believe the Quran as the exact words of God. A true Muslim has to obey each and every word of the Quran with unfaltering faithfulness and strict devotion.
They are called fundamentalist because Muslims are deeply anchored in each word of the Quran. They cannot bend a single line of the Quran to suit their personal benefit. The Muslims are divinely bound to return to the Quran for their true identity and salvation. Christians call Muslims fundamentalist because no Muslims dare to compromise with any injunctions of the Quran on account of any pressure, fear, reasons or gains. In this sense Muslims are fundamentalists. But now-a-days the word fundamentalists are used against the Muslims to identify them as arch-enemy of other faiths.
But the fact is that the Quran has subsumed the fundamental teachings of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism within its 6666 verses. The Quran can well be said that it is the representative holy books of all major religions of the world. We can have basic teachings of other religions in the pages of the Quran. The Quran comprehensively contains the fundamentals of Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism. Hence the Muslims who unwaveringly adhere to the teachings of the Quran can be rightfully termed as “Fundamentalists”. However, ‘fundamentalism’ must not be equated with fanaticism. It is more a question to obeying and following the ideas and teachings (principles and dictates) in an unaltered manner in peace and distress. Fanaticism has no place in it. That is the beauty of Islam to adhere to peace and fraternity.
(The writer is ex-DIG of Police)
