A certain sense of siege has also played on the Muslim psyche to force the community to become overly defensive — and insular. No one knew that flamboyant film director Mahesh Bhatt’s mother was a Shia Muslim until the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Today, his cellphone ringtone is his film Gangster’s song Ya Ali.

“I did this because it reminds me of my mother’s constant refrain. The sense of persecution that Muslims experience is what compelled me to assert my Muslim dimension and make a film based on my parents’ inter-communal marriage (Zakhm).”

But there are others who don’t buy this explanation. Says Javed Anand of Communalism Combat: “Non-Muslims had taken to Khuda Hafiz. This should have been allowed to be. Why change it? Many problems in fighting the stereotype about Muslims has been the closeness of the community basically due to the clerics’ unwillingness to debate, look beyond.”

Nowhere is this unwillingness to look beyond more evident than on the grounds of Shuklaji Road which houses the Jamia Qadriya Ashrafi Madrasa, home to over 100 adolescent boys, most of them poor and orphaned. Set up in 1996, it offers courses such as Alim Fazil, Hafiz and Qari and the virtues of the Quran. The day begins with early morning fajir prayers and is then clocked according to namaaz timings. The only break in the evening “is for those who wish to play a bit of cricket”, says Shakeel Ahmed Ashrafi, the khadim (worker) here. The Naazim or Director, Mohammed Umar Sufi, says: “The Quran has it all, ibadat (prayer), rozi-roti (bread and butter) issues, behaviour, it is the perfect book, duniya ka nichor hai isme (the essence of everything is here)”.

... contd.