Do knowledgeable Indian Muslims tacitly support Jamaat-e-Islami's bid for reprieve to Bangladesh's war criminals? Does this amount to treason or is it merely inhuman and un-Islamic?
By Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam
2 September 2013
Reacting to my statement in the recent brainstorming session New Age Islam Foundation had organised among some Sufi-minded Indian scholars, Muhammad Yunus Saheb shared the following thoughts with me in a personal letter but he allowed me to choose whether to share it with readers. So I am putting it below in this column for wider dissemination.
My comment: As far as I am concerned I continue to believe that by supporting the war criminals of Bangladesh who were involved in the killings of tens of thousands of innocent fellow Bengali Muslims Indian wing of Jamaat-e-Islami is revealing its anti-national, inhuman and un-Islamic character. Also, that by keeping quiet at Jamaat-e-Islami's public demonstration of its demonic face, the larger Indian Muslim community, certainly the knowledgeable among them, are participating in this treasonous, inhuman and un-Islamic act.
Let us not forget that we are talking here about mass murder, genocide of Muslims by fellow Muslim Army that should have been there to protect them and their religious leaders whose job it was to protect them rather than point them out to the marauders so they get killed.
I know these are strong words, possibly revealing my own intolerance. But, be that as it may, I do have very strong feelings about what happened in Bangladesh. I will try briefly to explain why. Perhaps one should not tolerate everything
I was a college student in Patna in those days (1970-71) and had for the first time got acquainted with something called a newspaper, coming as I did from a village in Bihar with no concept of daily newspapers. The first news I read and kept reading day after day was about the killings of thousands at the hands of fellow Muslim countrymen. The then East Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami's goons went on giving a list of Bangladesh's brains to the Pakistan Army soldiers to be eliminated. Colonies after colonies of Bangla intellectuals, academics, scientists, in particular, were liquidated in a bid to cripple what they must have known was an emerging country.
Let us recall the fact that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was not even demanding independence from Pakistan to begin with. He and the then East Pakistanis merely wanted the implementation of the results of a free and fair election held under military rule. Call this my psychological problem, if you will, but I find it impossible to reconcile with the killers of fellow Muslim countrymen by a groups which calls itself the party of Islam.
And for Indian wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami to demand reprieve for these killers and war criminals I find treasonous as Indian governmental support for Bangla war of independence had national support and was a humanitarian demand to which we responded despite many odds, not the least being American alliance with Pakistan and its unforeseeable consequences for us. For the larger Muslim community, at least, the knowledgeable among us, to extend tacit support to this act of treason I find devastating.
Normally a group of citizens should have the right to differ with the government's policy and even a national consensus. But Indian Muslim support for war criminals in Bangladesh is mind-boggling. To me treacherous and unforgiveable. Obviously, Muhammad Yunus Saheb is not alone in disagreeing with me; Indian government agencies themselves do not agree with me, otherwise, all Jamaat-e-Islami members, at the very least those who came out on streets and gathered in a ground in Kolakata to demonstrate their support, would have been rounded up for treason. Obviously Indian intellectuals and media do not agree with me either, as I see despicable Muslim leaders and ulema from other groups including Sufi groups who have extended their tacit support to the Indian wing of Jamaat-e-Islami in this matter continue to be treated with respect. Magnanimity of the Indian elite or stupidity only time will tell. But I expressed what I felt and at least a few Muslims listened to me.
Some Sufi-minded scholars in our brainstorming session too suggested that we should behave as Sufi masters did, use the language of love. However, I don't think Sufi masters had the misfortune to face terrorists in the guise of Islamists. They were interacting with common masses. When they encountered Islamists they just got themselves killed. Language of love did not save them. I do not see any reasonable possibility of a rational dialogue with Jamaat-e-Islami. There are individuals in Jamaat-e-Islami you can talk to. Some of them even leave the group on their own. Some top leaders left the group during Maulana Maududi's time too.
As I started my journalistic career working with Jamaat-e-Islami's magazine Radiance Viewsweekly in 1972, I still have some friends and they are very kind people, though no longer with the Jamaat. I had joined as a fresh graduate in English literature, with no idea whatsoever of what Jamaat-e-Islami was, but soon realised this was no place for any sane person to be at. Any group is a bunch of individuals with varying traits. But a group has its own identity and philosophy.
Jamaat-e-Islami has its own ideology. It believes that Islam is a totalitarian political philosophy out to conquer the world. As Maulana Maududi, its founder-ideologue said: "Islam wishes to do away with all states and governments which are opposed to the ideology and programme of lslam. ... Islam requires the earth - not just a portion, but the entire planet."
I consider Islam a spiritual path to salvation and am grateful for God having created such a beautiful multicultural, multi-religious, multi-colour, plural world. I want to co-exist with people of all hues in this world.
I repeat, I do not see any reasonable possibility of Muslims like me having any rational dialogue with such fanatical people who are prepared to kill any number of innocent people including fellow citizens and fellow Muslims and interpret Islam whichever way suits their politics in their crazy bid to conquer the world for establishing their rule in the name of restoring God's sovereignty.
I am glad Yunus Saheb, who is the strongest pillar of support for New Age Islam, expressed his disagreement with me and even allowed me to share this with New Age Islam readers. His letter follows:
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Dear Sultan Shahin Sahab,
I laud your effort to combat the ingress of extremism and radicalization in India. There is a pressing need for regeneration of Islamic thoughts and for a healthy debate among Muslim intellectuals on how best to integrate with the mainstream society in India as well as any Muslim minority countries. On my part I have done a number of researched articles on the theme, simply as a Muslim and a witness to humanity and I must thank New Age Islam for its support in getting some of them translated in different languages.
As it happens, humans cannot be above error. A sweeping remark hit my mental screen hard right in the beginning of the article and I feel, the article would have drawn greater admiration and would have been free from an obvious flaw, if that remark/ reference was omitted, from an otherwise compelling report.
1. The article has this statement: “Indian wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami clearly showed its anti-national character as Bangladesh's war of Independence had been supported by India.”
My comment: Any political party has as much right to express dissent against a government policy as the British law makers against their Government’s proposed policy for military intervention in Syria. You must know that Jamaat Islami still has a good following at grass root levels in Bangladesh as much as the MB in Egypt and other Islamist parties in many, if not most Muslim countries. So an Islamist party’s taking out a procession resenting their secular/ liberal Government’s policy, cannot by any stretch of imagination be conflated with sedition or harboring anti-national feeling.
This only goes to show that a top notch Muslim journalist of international standing as you remains mentally conditioned by Hadith legacy as expounded in my latest article in these words:
“There is no tolerance and political space owing a closed mindset that does not admit of any fresh thinking and is singularly rigid and incapable to strike a deal with those on the opposite side, ready to invite the Superpowers for moral, material or military support against political rivals.”
The issue on hand is immensely more complex than Jamat-e Islami, India, exercising its democratic right (as it thinks appropriate) and its in inclusion as an element of argument brings across the truth of the following conclusive statement of my article:
“In one word, the typical Muslim society is riddled with so many tiers of divides that it remains perpetually locked in debates over past and contentious issues and fails to focus on serious issues in a logical, collective and cohesive manner – a legacy of the rigidity, scholasticism, divergence and contradictions that permeate the Hadith sciences."
You can only learn if you allow people to disagree and think coolly and logically from the perspective of others. You have to win the Jamaat-e Islami, India by rational logic (fiqha) and not irrational logic as illustrated above.
You may post it or answer me directly.
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