By Pervez Bari, Twocircles.net,
Ujjain: Maulana Syed Mohammad Rabey Hasani Nadvi, president of All India Muslim Personal Board (AIMPLB), addressing the 23rd conference of AIMPLB called upon Muslims to remain united and vigilant to face the challenges posed by lower courts in interfering into Islamic Shariah laws which have been guaranteed in secular India’s Constitution.
Delivering presidential address here on Friday night Maulana Rabey said in Islam the importance of “Deen” (religion) is topmost priority for Muslims for which he can remain hungry but never allow intrusion into its Sharia laws. The India Constitution has granted him the freedom of following his personal laws without any hindrance, he added.
He exhorted Muslim Ummah to follow the teachings of Islam and principles and rules of Shariah in all aspects of life, particularly in family matters, in letter and spirit so as not give any chance to the adversaries of Islam to criticize it. This would be the first step in protecting the Islamic Shariah and make the task of AIMPLB easy, he opined.
Maulana Wali Rahmani speaking at the function
Removing misconceptions in the minds of the non-Muslim brethren about the Shariah and Islam is also an objective of the Board and it has taken several steps in this direction to set right the wrongly perceived notions”, he said.
Muslims should keep a constant eye on the situation and the developments that take place therein so that the community is always able to avail its religious freedom as guaranteed by the Indian constitution and there is no curb on it. This is necessary because they are in the minority and their identity as a Muslim is maintained unscathed. There is a possibility that the bogey of Uniform Civil Code which occurred in some people’s minds can crop up again while it is well known that the Indian Constitution has given country’s every religion the right to practice it according to their established norms and run their institutions, he cautioned.
Maulana Rabey said that there is need to keep this freedom of religious rights intact as there is a likelihood that it may be tampered with or the situation may be created for the government of the day to take it under its control. Recently many Acts have been passed wherein certain provisions of these Acts are found to be harmful to the religious freedom of minorities and the AIMPLB is doing all its best to rectify them. It seems that the government, through different Acts and bills, was trying to interfere in Muslim laws, he added.
AIMPLB office-bearers Maulana Syed Nizamuddin, Maulana Wali Rahmani, Maulana Khalid Saifullah Maulana along with Syed Jalaluddin Umari and others also spoke on the occasion.
Earlier, Maulana Hafiz Qari Mohammad Taqui, president of the Reception Committee of 23rd conference of AIMPLB, while delivering his welcome address recalled the rich heritage of Muslim clerics who visited Ujjain in the past and their Dawah work among the people of the area.
At the outset Qari Abdus Salam recited verses from the Holy Qur’an. In the beginning obituary references to number of AIMPLB members including Sulaiman Sikandar of Hyderabad, Dr. Abdul Huq Ansari of Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Syed Hasani Nadvi, Maulana Abdullah Hasani Nadvi and their kin who passed away in last one year since the last Board’s convention held in April 2012 at Mumbai.