So what kind of societies Muslims, its rulers and clergy class want to build in the world? What kind of messages they want to give to the world about the nature of Islamic teachings and Islamic societies?
By Anwar Hussain
Today when I took newspaper, Asian Age in my hand, I saw news of suicide attacks in Kabul. The bomb blasts and suicide attacks have become so common in Muslim countries that people have become numb and reaction-less to this kind of activities.
There was another news in which it was mentioned that police commissioner in Bangladesh has advised people there not to hurt the religious sentiments of people on religious grounds. And according to him, the murder of Niloy (a blogger) in Bangladesh was because of this, otherwise people would not have killed him. Here it is important to mention that he is not criticising the gruesome murder of that person who was hacked to death by using crude weapons such as chopper and other items. Even if you think about that you tremble by the way the murderers would have killed him.
>
In Syria, so many people are getting killed on a daily basis but Bashar al Asad, an obstinate fellow, is not forsaking power. Even if lakhs of people get killed it does not bother him, but he would not like to lose power. Even Asoka after seeing bloodshed in the war of Kalinga converted to Buddhism. But these Muslim rulers residing in Gulf, West Africa and countries such as Egypt, Libya and erstwhile Tunisia are blood suckers. They will never abdicate the throne willingly in the interest of people or nation. For them killing of innocent human beings is nothing even if that means killings hundreds and thousands of Muslims. What sort of these rulers are, you can well imagine?
The rulers of Muslim countries, barring few, are ruthless dictators, tyrants and exploiters of common Muslims of highest orders. But the problem with us is that if this kind of tendencies would have been confined to rulers, then it was thinkable. But now, it has spread to common masses too. Now in Muslim societies, the clergy class, politicians, criminals, mafia and extremist groups etc are also showing the signs of accepting this kind of mentality and behaviour.
And this kind of tendency is creating havoc among Muslim societies. For instance, the clergy class is declaring different sects as kafir and for them killing of Muslims of different sects, other than their particular ones, are not condemnable. Secondly, the local politicians and political groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan have taken law into their own hands and they have adopted these methods of killing political opponents through bomb blasts or suicide bombers. They have developed the habits of dealing with criticism and their opposition by political groups by not mobilizing the masses through arguments and ideology but by adopting the methods of eliminating the opposition groups through guns.
The Quran is an ideological book and it differentiates among people ideologically that if you accept its ideology, then you are a Muslim. And it always shows the right path. But this holy book never commands its followers to kill a person if somebody disagrees with Quranic ideology. Secondly, it never recommends a person to cling on to political power even if hundreds and thousands of innocent persons get killed.
So what kind of societies Muslims, its rulers and clergy class want to build in the world? What kind of messages they want to give to the world about the nature of Islamic teachings and Islamic societies? All Muslims need to think about this and answer this question if you really want to purify Islamic teachings and implement the Quranic teachings in the Muslim society.
—
Anwar Hussain is a lecturer at Vartak College, Vasai (W) near Mumbai