The other day I saw my first Hindi/Urdu play, a classic piece of Indian theater called "Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya O Jamyai Nai" (One who has not seen Lahore has not lived), where and Indian Muslim family is forced to move to Lahore and are allotted a big house by the Pakistani government, but soon realize it's already inhabited by a cantankerous elderly Hindu lady, left behind by other Hindus and refusing to leave. Both parties face a hard time trying to tolerate each other, but eventually a lesson on religious tolerance is learned, but not without scars. Through a story of one family, the play depicts the fate of the some 10 million people who were forced to leave their homes during Partition of India and Pakistan and were resettled, sometimes randomly, by the governments of the newborn nations. Almost a million people lost their lives when Hindus and Muslims were forced on a collision course.
The next morning news channels were screaming in unison how the U.S. consulate in the Benghazi region of Libya had been attacked by rocket-propelled grenades, killing four people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. The violence had been allegedly triggered off by an anti-Islam movie "Innocence of Muslims", which depicts Mohammad as a mindless, violent, womanizing fraudster. Nobody had actually seen the movie, apart from a 14-minute preview, which seemed to be more than enough for most. The clip is a surreal mix of blue-screen effects, fake beards and level of acting usually found in adult entertainment movies, all mixed with overdubbed anti-Islamic propaganda.
Soon after, more ripples of rage started sputtering around the world. Groups of young men rioted and screamed bloody murder for death to Americans, once again. Had a fraction of the ludicrous movie not been dubbed into Arabic and aired on an Egyptian Islamist news channel, it would have most likely been lost into the endless stream of video on YouTube. Eventually it seemed clear that the video was just an excuse for agitation. Unfortunately it became a symbol of the current sad state of affairs - religious interpretation has been harnessed by thugs and politicians and the authority of Islamic scholarly debate seems to waning, only to be replaced by the boiling blood of young frustrated and uneducated men.
The constant news feed reminded me of a very definitive moment in the play: Pehelwan, a local goon, has had a heated debate with the local Maulvi, an elderly Islamic scholar, about cremating the elderly Hindu woman according to the correct rituals, to show respect to her remains. He has lectured Pehelwan on religious tolerance and reminded him that the Qur'an teaches us peace and tolerance towards one's fellow man. Infuriated by his words, Pehelwan kills Maulvi in a fit of rage - A fanatic thug murders a religious authority figure and justifies his deed by asserting to be a true Muslim instead. The Maulvi's message did not serve his interests, thus he had to be eradicated.
Written in 1989 and set in 1947, the point made in the play is painfully current even today. Political agendas have no use for rational and tolerant religious self-reflection and discussion. The article "The place of tolerance in Islam - On reading the Qur'an and misreading it" by Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl neatly goes through the emergence of the politicization of Islam and how the influence of religious erudition and meaningful discourse seems to be on the decline:
Islam is now living through a major shift, unlike any it has experienced in the past. The Islamic civilization has crumbled, and the traditional institutions that once sustained and propagated Islamic orthodoxy—and marginalized Islamic extremism—have been dismantled. Traditionally, Islamic epistemology tolerated and even celebrated divergent opinions and schools of thought. The guardians of the Islamic tradition were the jurists (fuqaha), whose legitimacy rested largely on their semi-independence from a decentralized political system, and their dual function of representing the interests of the state to the laity and the interests of the laity to the state.
In the vast majority
of Muslim countries, the state now controls the private religious
endowments (awqaf) that once sustained the juristic class. Moreover,
the state has co-opted the clergy, and transformed them into its
salaried employees. This transformation has reduced the clergy's
legitimacy, and produced a profound vacuum in religious authority.
Hence, there is a state of virtual anarchy in modern Islam: it is not
clear who speaks with authority on religious issues. Such a state of
virtual religious anarchy is perhaps not problematic in secular
societies where religion is essentially reduced to a private matter.
But where religion remains central to the dynamics of public
legitimacy and cultural meaning, the question of who represents the
voice of God is of central significance.
Theocratic Islamic states such as Pakistan have been unfortunately prone to harboring critical masses of extremists who are quick to lay claim to a correct interpretation of religious doctrines. Thus, in a theocratic state, religion is easily harnessed for political aims as well. Once in an interview with Perwez Musharraf, the veteran journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave asked for an estimate of the amount of extremists in Pakistan. Musharraf had replied carelessly that it would be roughly around 1% of the population. De Borchgrave was quick to point out that 1% out of 150 million would make roughly 1.5 million people with their fingers on the trigger. Musharraf was stunned and confessed of never thinking about it that way.
In India, Muslims remain a minority, albeit a big one, and Islamic zealotry fueled by young men has remained a relatively marginal phenomenon as the majority of Indian Muslims adhere to moderate doctrines. The society has a long history of religious pluralism and tolerance and thus "the word of God" remains largely a private matter. For example a notable Sufi population finds refuge in India as they have remained the underdogs in the current trends of the Islamic world. Due to this religious diversity, India has remained a secular society and the Muslim youth have been incorporated to the mainstream without reservations.
Political disenfranchisement is bubbling under though and Islamic fanaticism has its supporters in India as well. Responding to the havoc caused by the anti-Islam video, the leaders on Muslim-dominated areas such as Kashmir have tried to reason with the enraged youths, although also condemning the content of the video:
Kashmiri leaders have condemned the killings. “We are not liking these things,” said Mr. Geelani. “Innocent people who are not directly involved in any film or any injuries toward the Muslim community should not be targeted.”
Still, some young Kashmiris found it logical to blame the actions of the filmmaker on the United States. “After all, Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 was blamed on the entire Muslim world,” said Junaid, 23, the third student. “Sam Bacile is one American, but then we can take it as all of America,” he said.
Young people in Kashmir are being influenced by Wahhabism, a conservative form of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, said Muhammad Shafi Pandit, the first Kashmiri Muslim to join the Indian Administrative Service in 1969. Kashmir has seen a perceptible rise of Wahhabism, he said, and more young Kashmiris are taking hard-line positions. “Their ways are not part of Kashmir,” he said. “Our pluralistic ethos should not be lost.”
So far, the Nizamuddin basti across the road to my house has remained peaceful though and the American embassy in New Delhi has only nominally increased the amount of security guards outside the compound.
Theocratic Islamic states such as Pakistan have been unfortunately prone to harboring critical masses of extremists who are quick to lay claim to a correct interpretation of religious doctrines. Thus, in a theocratic state, religion is easily harnessed for political aims as well. Once in an interview with Perwez Musharraf, the veteran journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave asked for an estimate of the amount of extremists in Pakistan. Musharraf had replied carelessly that it would be roughly around 1% of the population. De Borchgrave was quick to point out that 1% out of 150 million would make roughly 1.5 million people with their fingers on the trigger. Musharraf was stunned and confessed of never thinking about it that way.
In India, Muslims remain a minority, albeit a big one, and Islamic zealotry fueled by young men has remained a relatively marginal phenomenon as the majority of Indian Muslims adhere to moderate doctrines. The society has a long history of religious pluralism and tolerance and thus "the word of God" remains largely a private matter. For example a notable Sufi population finds refuge in India as they have remained the underdogs in the current trends of the Islamic world. Due to this religious diversity, India has remained a secular society and the Muslim youth have been incorporated to the mainstream without reservations.
Political disenfranchisement is bubbling under though and Islamic fanaticism has its supporters in India as well. Responding to the havoc caused by the anti-Islam video, the leaders on Muslim-dominated areas such as Kashmir have tried to reason with the enraged youths, although also condemning the content of the video:
Kashmiri leaders have condemned the killings. “We are not liking these things,” said Mr. Geelani. “Innocent people who are not directly involved in any film or any injuries toward the Muslim community should not be targeted.”
Still, some young Kashmiris found it logical to blame the actions of the filmmaker on the United States. “After all, Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 was blamed on the entire Muslim world,” said Junaid, 23, the third student. “Sam Bacile is one American, but then we can take it as all of America,” he said.
Young people in Kashmir are being influenced by Wahhabism, a conservative form of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, said Muhammad Shafi Pandit, the first Kashmiri Muslim to join the Indian Administrative Service in 1969. Kashmir has seen a perceptible rise of Wahhabism, he said, and more young Kashmiris are taking hard-line positions. “Their ways are not part of Kashmir,” he said. “Our pluralistic ethos should not be lost.”
So far, the Nizamuddin basti across the road to my house has remained peaceful though and the American embassy in New Delhi has only nominally increased the amount of security guards outside the compound.
