Consider this headline from the front page anchor in Sahafat (Nov. 13): ‘Hamara “Obama” bhi kisi se kam nahin’ (Our Obama is no less). ‘Our Obama’ here is Rahul Gandhi. “Rahul too, like Obama, is young, both have studied at Harvard. Rahul too, like Obama, has the commitment and courage to fight against adversity, something he has been demonstrating over the last four years,” it points out.

Preach and practice

The strong fatwa against Mumbai-based well-known preacher and Islamic tele-evangelist, Dr. Zakir Naik, by a Mufti of Lucknow, has stirred the pot. He has been charged with supporting Bin Laden, among other things. Urdu newspapers have refrained from making editorial comments, but several opinion pieces have supported the television-savvy preacher. Maqshoodul Hasan Qasmi, in a piece in Hindustan Express (Nov. 12), writes: “He (Dr. Naik) considers the attack on New York’s World Trade Centre a terrorist act. But he cannot say with certainty who was behind it. Do not Muslims and other justice-loving people of the world share the view that no solid proof has come out about Osama Bin Laden’s involvement in that attack?” Maulana Nadeem-ul-Wajedi, in a comprehensive article in Hamara Samaj (Nov. 5), takes on an earlier fatwa from Deoband’s Darul Uloom against Dr. Naik that reportedly said that the preacher is “a ghair muqallid (not believing in the basic tenets of Islam) as he is not even attired in Islamic clothes, so his views are not reliable.” Maulana Al-Wajedi asks if it is proper to take a sensitive religious issue “casually”, without referring to details of the preacher’s speeches and writings.

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