By Dr Wasim Ahmad,
There are a few questions that I have been asked to respond to. My humble submissions are as follows:
1. Do you see Muslims having multitude of problems in India?
We all notice that. The main problem, however, is that we do not have a clear goal. We don’t know which direction we should move into. We do not have a correct and clear perception of knowledge. For us knowledge is merely ‘knowing the known’. This is why our educated are not truly educated. I asked my students that since they already had two eyes why did they come to the University? Then I told them that they have come for an additional pair of eyes. If the educated do not develop two more eyes then they are not truly educated. If the educated, too, see mostly what is there and not more of what is not there then I doubt if they developed any new eyes.
Sometimes I wonder why our educated, too, are expected to think at the ordinary level. But because we do that we remain at the ordinary level. Sometimes I think that I could not have been able to hire the facilities in all the educational institutions that I studied in even for an hour – on my own. However, I availed those facilities for over two decades. It means millions have been invested in me. If I still think at the level of the person in whom this much has not been invested then what was the purpose of immense resources being spent upon me and what am I paying back? Where is the return (profit) of that huge investment? Instead of bringing the people up we go down to their level. Resultantly we remain where we are and have been. We can have some tangible change if we find out the purpose of education and correct our concept of knowledge – something to this effect:developing a well-organized body of ideas and creatively reaching out to the unknown with the power of critical and scientific thinking.
When I see that we intensively teach Qur’an – which emphasises on giving – for eleven months and then in one month (Ramadan) we set out asking then I wonder what have we been teaching in those long months – year after year. The other day I was discussing the same point that the Qur’an emphasises on giving and not on receiving and the fact that we know that there is reward in giving but we haven’t come across any injunction that there is huge thawaab in receiving and asking. A gentleman, however, suggested that “there should be someone to receive also because the Book of Allah asks us to give. How can we give if there is no one to receive?” This line of reasoning made me think of “Every soul shall have a taste of death” (Aal ‘Imraan, 3: 185). Since every soul shall have a taste of death let us give up all the efforts at saving life. It also reminded me of the numerous Ahaadeeth about the Last Hour in many books of Hadeeth. We should not ‘enjoin the people for good and forbid them from evil’ (3: 104) – flouting the command of the Almighty – because we have to prove the Prophet (pbuh) right and have to make sure that the signs he warned of surely exist. This is why I argue that there are gaps in our thinking and there is incoherence in our thoughts. This is why I argue that we learn wrong lessons from right stories.
The Muslims in India need to unlearn more than they need to learn. For instance, they have to outlive their desire for leaders. Instead of waiting for leaders they should groom leaders in educational institutions. Our educational institutions should turn each individual student into a leader. To me educating and waiting for leaders is self-contradictory. We should either educate or wait for leaders. We shouldn’t do both – at the same time. We should come out of this self-contradiction.
2. What a Muslim living in India should be doing to solve it in (his) individual capacity?
A Muslim living in India should realize what the problems are – before solving any of those. Once we have realized it we will find out that the solutions are not that difficult. This is why I will argue that the questions are more important than answers. A Muslim living in India should not develop resistance against a different voice. Should not dismiss everything as the conspiracy of a “foreign hand”. A Muslim living in India should not look at his institutions as articles of faith. He should always be watchful about the focus of his institutions and their direction.
The Muslims in India can turn their problems into opportunities and the negatives into positives – if only they are allowed to – by their leaders and with a different thought pattern. If only they are given a chance they can serve as a very good example for the rest of the people on earth. There is a void which they can fill. It is good for them and for all others – including the fellow countrymen. When they hide the light which they have and then they complain about the darkness around then I wonder what I am witnessing. What a strange phenomenon?
With a clear goal in sight (which we still need to arrive at) and aligning all the aspects of our life with that goal and knowing that the “longest is the shortest” we can move ahead. We should also know the fact that “the direction is more important than speed”.
3. What should be the agenda of any Muslim Organisation or Group?
The agenda of any Muslim Organization or Group should be to wean the Indian Muslims away from the culture of Groups and Organizations. The agenda of all Muslim Organizations and Groups should be to make the Muslims independent of Groups and Organizations. To make them stand on their own feet with their distinct individual identity. The agenda is to think on this point and reflect on what it means in the long run.
Our agenda is to go back to the individuals and treat them as individuals. The agenda is “……. rearing of self-concentrated individuals. Such individuals alone reveal the depth of life. They disclose new standards (of thought and action) in the light of which we begin to see that our environment is not wholly inviolable and requires revision.” (The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Sh. Muhammad Ashraf Publishers, Lahore, 1999, p. 151) There are many who are ready to devour up the individuals and who are actually doing so for a long time – from after 1258 CE.
4. What should we as a community be doing to resolve our issues and the issues of other fellow human beings?
The foremost thing that the community should be doing to resolve its issues is to focus less on its issues and more on the issues of others. It is to shift its focus from the community to the individual. Unless we do that we should not desire welcoming a Season of Spring (rawish rawish hai wahi intezaar ka mausam!) anytime soon. We will continue living in the autumn.
We should not be invoking Islam and Sharee‘ah only when we find that they justify our position or line of argument – selectively. Instead, we should try our best to find the spirit of our Faith and then align and justify ourselves accordingly. We should work towards a paradigm shift. We should work towards changing our existing thought patterns.
We lament on the interpretation of human laws and its subversion day in and day out. But we flout the code of conduct enshrined in the pristine Constitution (the Book) always and do not mind it. The Book asks us to reason and reflect and we do everything except these two. The Book asks us not to get divided in groups and not to separate dunyaa from deen and we make sure that we certainly divide the two and ourselves. Not much articles on this. Not much outpourings on this.
(The author is Dept. Head of Islamic Studies, Preston University Ajman, United Arab Emirates. Email:[email protected])