Wasim Rizvi, the ex Chairman of Shia Waqf Board has filed a PIL in
Supreme Court. It states that 26 verses of Islam should be deleted as
they promote terrorism. He also says that Madrassas are giving the
training for terrorism and if not stooped India will witness a huge
rise in terror acts. He is also the one who has made derogatory films
against Sunni belief and practices apart from saying that Muslims are
reproducing like animals. As far as terrorism in India is concerned
Minister of Home, Krishna Reddy had stated that the sources of terror
acts are not in this country.
Incidentally his dealings are being investigated for illegal sale of
Waqf property under his chief ship. There is a huge uproar in sections
of Muslim community against him, punishing him; death threats etc. In
his support the likes of Kangana Ranaut and Gajendra Chauhan have
appreciated him as a true nationalist, while officially BJP has
distanced itself from Rizvi’s sayings. His understanding or lack of
that about Koran notwithstanding the motive to curry favor with the
ruling government through such actions is more than obvious. He is
adding to the prevalent Islamophobia in a great measure. He is
parroting what the propaganda is being spread by communal forces about
Muslims’ being terrorists or producing more children. This propaganda
has played a serious role in creating Hatred against Muslims and this
hatred in turn has formed the base on which communal violence is
orchestrated.
As far Muslims producing more children is concerned, serious works of
scholarship tell us that poverty and illiteracy and imposed
ghettotization result in higher rate of population growth. There are
statistics which tell us that despite the present situation the
decadal rate of growth of Muslim population is under decline on
continuous basis.(Decadal Growth rate 1991-32.9%, 2001-29.5%, 2011-
24.6%) The prediction is that Muslim population should stabilize
around 18% by 2070.
As far as Koran and violence is concerned, Rizvi is rephrasing the
global propaganda, post 9/11 2001. One does not know the credentials
of Rizvi as an Islamic scholar but the notions popularized by American
media in the aftermath of 9/11 are clearly the stuff from which he
seems to be picking up to please those in power, to curry favor for
his own selfish motives.
In India the scholars of Islam, particularly my late friend Asghar Ali
Engineer and renowned scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan emphasize the
meaning of most of the Koranic verses in their context. According to
these scholars the emphasis on peace is prevalent all through in
Koran. One example is the verse 32 of Chapter 5 which tells us that
killing even a single innocent person is like killing the whole
humanity. The second being that there cannot be force in matters of
religion, to you your faith to me mine. These raise lot of doubt about
the understanding of Rizwi. As per him these 26 verses are later
insertion and are the source of violence. One needs to examine but the
trajectory of use of words Kafir and Jihad in late twentieth century.
To indoctrinate Al Qaeda elements these words were presented with
distorted meaning. This was done in few Madrassas of Pakistan.
In the indoctrination module coordinated and funded by United States
(Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim Bad Msulim, Permanent Black) tells us
from the documents of CIA that Us spent 8000 million dollars to prop
up the Al Qaeda. It was part of strategy of US to combat Russian
forces in Afghanistan, for which America was not able to send its own
army. The reason behind that was the low morale of American army due
to its defeat at the hands of Vietnamese people.
America in a shrewd operation picked up a sectarian version of Islam
and the word kafir and Jihad were given a twist to brainwash the
Muslim youth being trained in some madrassas of Pakistan. Word Kafir
which means ‘one who hides truth’ was manipulated to mean the ‘non
believers’ or even those who disagree with you. Killing them was
presented as Jihad. Such jihad in turn would open the path of Jannat
when Mujahideen lay down their lives in such acts. The real punch of
indoctrination comes at this stage as what was propagated was that
those who lay down their lives in Jihad will straight go to Jannat
(Muslim equivalent of heaven or Hindu equivalent of Swarga), where 72
virgins are waiting for the Jihadi!)
In Koran, Jihad as such stands for utmost effort. There are many such
strivings e.g. fighting against evils within oneself (Jihad-e- Akbar)
and social evils (Jihad-e-Asghar). With this distortion and the
American funding, Al Qaeda joined the anti Soviet forces, the real aim
of America. A Frankenstein’s monster was created by this strategy.
After 9/11 twin tower attack the word ‘Islamic terrorism’ was
popularized and Muslims all over started being looked at as
terrorists. It became a ‘thinkable thought’ that Muslim is a
terrorist. It was manufactured by US media and the other media picked
up from that.
Many started labeling Madrassas in general as the dens of terror. In
India we saw particularly between 2006 to 2008 that after every act of
terror, like Malegaon, Makkah Masjid, Ajmer Dargah and Samjhauta
Express blast while most victims were Muslims, those who were accused
for such acts were Muslims again. This went on till Malegaon blast in
which the Maharashtra ATS Chief Hemant Karkare came across the motor
cycle used in Malegaon blast belonging the Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur,
ABVP leader, currently BJP MP from Bhopal.
Popular perceptions are constructed through multiple mechanisms and
today what Rizvi is saying is music to the years of communal forces,
who have been actively promoting such propaganda at ground level. This
propaganda adds on to the other myths and biases against Muslim
community and intensity of Hate in society goes up few notches up due
to such a misconceptions.
Now Rizvi, under the scrutiny for illegal sale of Waqf property is
mouthing it in various forms. Scholarship of Koran and Islam is not
what is leading him to this fallacy. Hope we have more efforts to
combat the narrative created by Imperialist forces and further
promoted by communal forces.
