Patna Bomb Blasts: What Were They - Response, Revenge Or...... Ideologically Driven In Search Of 'Promised Rewards'?
By Aiman Reyaz, New Age Islam, Patna
The recent serial bomb attacks in Patna highlight the ideology-driven actions that led to a first of its kind series of blasts in the capital of Bihar, Patna.
What led to these 12 men to plant bombs in the heart of the city to cause maximum damage. The main intention was to kill, especially women and children via stampede but fortunately these handful of radicalised Muslim terrorists were unable to connect the wires properly which did not lead to the result they desired. And the BJP officials, who had organised the occasion for a speech by Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP's prime ministerial hopeful, Mr. Narendra Modi, thankfully, led the crowd to believe that it was the fire crackers that were creating so much noise and that people should maintain calm.
The Patna blasts, like many other blasts in recent times across the world have been done as a certain ideologically driven action that has “promised rewards”. These rewards are to be given, or so they have been trained to think like this, in the next life and these are: to be called a shaheed (martyr), and a martyr who dies for the sake of Islam will get 70 full-bosomed virgins, besides getting wine, milk, honey and whatever the hearts will desire.
Types and Hypes
There are two types of people who do these things: first are those who are totally committed into believing that their belief system alone is the Truth (mind you it should be ‘the Truth’ and not just ‘truth’). They will never indulge in introspection into what their beliefs are. Since childhood they have been told things like: ‘Islam is the best religion’, ‘Islam is the Truth and time will prove that’, ‘non-Muslims will go to hell’, ‘do dawah because it opens the keys of heaven’ etc.
These are the people like Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ahmed Abdi Godane etc. A sub-category of Muslims under this is that of people like Dr Zakir Naik, Ahmed Deedat, Sheikh Muhammad Abdul Jabbar etc. They fall under this sub-category because although they do not endorse killings, yet their version of Islam is individualistic, divisive and to say the least, not at all inclusive.
You should not say things like: ‘Islam- product, 100% but marketing 0%; Christianity- product 0% but marketing 100%’, ‘agar deviji hongi tabhi to dawat denge’(you invite the goddess to Islam only if she exists)., ‘Bible me aisi cheez hai ke ek achcha insan bol bhi nahi sakta hai, aap apni maa ke samne nahi bol payenge, usme, mai bolna nahi chahta, pornography hai, kaise rape karte hai woh likha hua hai, kaise gangrape karte hain woh bhi hai, mai aur nahi keh sakta’(The Bible has such things written in it that no decent person will read it, I can’t say it. You can’t say it in front of your mother. It has pornography in it, the Bible teaches how to rape and how to even gang-rape and .., well, I cannot say more.) [Quotations from Dr. Zakir Naik.]
The only message you are sending to the thousands of youths who come to listen to you is that Muslims are the best people, Islam is the best religion and that it is our duty to correct others. This attitude, psychologically speaking, creates a division of the world into ‘us’ Muslims aka “best people” Vs ‘them’ non-Muslims aka “erring people” and this, in turn, is the biggest reason for lack of unity in the world.
When you cannot accept to live with the differences then there can be no way of cohesion between the two groups. A group is formed only if the members have at least one identity common, but when your overarching identity overshadows all the other identities and that overarching identity is not pluralistic then there can never be any group formation with those who do not come under the umbrella of that overarching identity (here the overarching identity is that of being a fanatic Muslim).
The other type of people who are involved in terrorist activities is that of those ghettoised Muslims, who have no work to do. They don’t have the skill to hold any job, it is not the vice versa, which the majority of Muslim community believes in, to put the blame on the government.
These people are the unskilled, unemployed youths who have nothing fruitful to give to the society. I have been told by many Muslims that government has not done anything to uplift their situation, “Sarkar Mussalmano ke liye kuch nahi karti, bas election se pehle aake vote leleti hai, phir marne ke liye chor deti hai”, said one Imam of ‘Muradpur’ mosque in Patna; the other Imam from Darzi Tola said “Zyadatar aap dekhiyega ke Muslims ek dum third class kaam me hain, aur Hinduon ko dekhiye, woh to top ki jobs me hain. Muslims sirf chota mota kaam me hai”.
The point to be noted is that it is not that government is not doing anything for the down class Muslims; it is, rather that they are unskilled. They are not educated, they hardly have any technical knowledge, and they don’t speak English, which are the necessary requirement for better jobs. They don’t want to go to secular schools, because they think that secular schools (read missionary schools) will convert them to the eaters of Jesus’s flesh and drinkers of wine (symbolical of the blood of Jesus) i.e., Christianity.
Historically speaking, before the British rule, it was more of a class struggle rather than a religious struggle. Communal attitude developed because of a struggle between the new landlords and the depressed landlords. That a very large majority of Indian capitalists were Hindu in social composition was entirely because of certain historical factors and not because of Hindu communalism or Hindu ‘planning’ or Hindu ‘conspiracy’.
They would rather go to their madrasas and do rote learning of the Quran. They would memorise the whole Quran and would mug up a few hundred hadiths and that is ‘knowledge’ for them. And if you would try to argue with them, as I once did, that one should learn other things as well, they would get angry as if the person has uttered a blasphemy.
They think that the only knowledge that is to be found is inside the 6,236 verses of the Quran and a few hundred thousand verses of the hadiths, anything more than this is fabricated, illogical and sacrilegious and anything less than this is incomplete... How can you argue with people of such mentality?
The problem with the Muslim community is that they always put the blame on to the Other; be it government, other sect, other religion, other country: ‘Muslims live in such a bad condition because Modi never visited us’, says a Gujarat 2002 victim, with whom I have full sympathies; ‘we are in a mess because Israel and America are against us’; ‘we are in this condition because...’ Well, it is at least true that Modi has time to visit victims of Patna blasts in villages of Bihar but has never visited victims of 2002 massacres under his watch in the relief camps in which Muslims still live in his own state capital, Ahmedabad, even though he and his party is now even seeking Muslim votes too now.
The Muslim community must realise that the real enemy is not outside, it is inside. We have to shoulder our responsibility; but allow me to be pessimistic this will never happen, not for a long, long time.
Here’s a quick recap: the first group wishes to harm others because they think, nay they believe that it is their moral obligation to convert others to Islam and that too, into their version of Islam; the second group wishes and it mostly wishes as it has nothing profitable to do for the society, so they kill others in the hope of a better afterlife.
Their study material
In order to succeed in any exam you must know the syllabus and when you are acquainted with it, after that you need your study material with which you can pass the exam with flying colours. This life is an exam for all of us, the people are the syllabus, especially the non-Muslims and the study material for the fanatical Muslims to pass the exam (i.e., to either convert them or to kill them) are: the Quran (which is the most important material), the Hadiths (which is second only to the Quran) and even the call to fight from the clerics are strong and reliable study material.
Does this mean that the Quran and the Hadiths spread terrorism? ‘Yes’, if you go by the fanatical Muslims (only that they would prostitute the word ‘terrorism’ with ‘Islamism’) and by the testimonies of many non-Muslims who have developed negative attitudes toward Muslims and Islam in general because of a handful of fanatics.
And ‘No’, if you go by a scholarly interpretation which is the correct interpretation, keeping the historical as well as the contextual factors in mind. The Quran does say in several places ‘to kill the kafirs’ and to ‘smite their necks’ etc but all these sword verses, let me reiterate with more emphasis, ALL THESE SWORD VERSES, were meant only for those people and that time and they are not at all relevant in the present situation.
Historically and contextually we know that the Muslims were persecuted from their homeland and that the pagan army often attacked the handful of Muslims. For the first 13 years, Muslims were always told to be patient and devote themselves to prayers, but when the killings and brutality from the pagan side increased dramatically then God allowed (mark the work ‘allowed’, not ‘commanded’) Muslims to fight back for what is right and still to “commit no excesses”. So from a scholarly interpretation Quran allowed to fight back only for that period and these sword verses are not relevant today.
Then there is the study material of hadiths. Majority of hadiths speak about love and compassion but many also speak about fighting. Many hadiths follow the exact principle of the Quran i.e., allowing fighting in case of defence; while some differ from the Qur'anic principle- instead of defensive warfare, which the Quran propagates, these concocted hadiths proclaim openly, and brazenly, to indulge in offensive warfare and to terrorise the najas- “the spiritually unclean infidels”.
There are so many hadiths which are revered as ‘Sahih’ (meaning “authentic”) like Bukhari and Muslim which directly contradict the teachings of the Quran. I will quote only one:
“The Prophet said, ‘Nobody who enters Paradise likes to go back to the world even if he got everything on the earth, except a Mujahid [Islamic fighter] who wishes to return so that he may be martyred ten times because of the dignity he receives.’ Our Prophet told us about the message of Allah: ‘Whoever among us is killed will go to Paradise.’ Umar asked the Prophet, ‘Is it not true that our men who are killed will go to Paradise and those of the Pagan’s will go to Hell?’ The Prophet said, ‘Yes.’” Bukhari:V4B52N73 “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Know that Paradise is under the shade of swords.’”
Another oft-quoted scholar is Ishaq. He writes:
Ishaq:326 “Allah said, ‘No Prophet before Muhammad took booty from his enemy nor prisoners for ransom.’ Muhammad said, ‘I was made victorious with terror. The earth was made a place for me to clean. I was given the most powerful words. Booty was made lawful for me. I was given the power to intercede. These five privileges were awarded to no prophet before me.’”
This is like programming the people: that it is an honour to kill the infidels even today, the highest rewards will be given to those who kill the most for the sake of Allah; that it is their duty to kill and bomb, if they don’t convert, all those who differ with them.
I would end with just one verse from the Quran:
“If it had been your Lord’s will, all of the people on Earth would have believed. Would you then compel the people so to have them believe?” [Surah Yunus: 99]
There are two things that we notice: first compulsion is not allowed in religion and secondly God wants people to have different beliefs and that we need to celebrate the differences rather than to fight and kill over it.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/patna-bomb-blasts-were-they/d/14268