Shahi Imam, you’ve got mail

Dear Imam Sahib,

As-salam-o-Alaikum:
YOU occupy an exalted position as the custodian of Dilli’s Jama masjid. You are the prayer leader, the moral guide of the thousands who pray at the great masjid. The faithful expect you to interpret the Holy Koran and the traditions of our great Prophet and not to make political pronouncements. The sweet sound of the Azano (prayer call) from the minaret, rather than the call for jihad from the pulpit, is what they want to hear.

Scores of mosques, shrines and traditional schools dot our landscape. Yet, we do not hear fatwa emanating from, say the Fatehpuri mosque, situated so close to where you hold court. Similarly, we observe piety on its knees at the sacred shrines in Nizamuddin and Mehrauli, and not politicians lining up to pay homage to their sajjada-nashin (object of salutation). These long-standing institutions command allegiance, and yet they are not susceptible to political influences. Please follow their example, eschew politics, and avoid turning our great masjid into a political akhara. You will then find many more faithful being drawn to you and the mosque. Piety, devotion and humanity are the essence of the Islamic faith.

There is no Pope, priest or bishop in Islam. Islam also does not recognise any form of social and religious hierarchy. Ek hi saf me khare ho gaye Mahmud-o-Ayaz (the King and the slave pray together), said the poet Iqbal. Doubtless, you have inherited a position, and, for this reason, you occupy a vantage point in the lanes and by-lanes of old Dilli. But, surely, this does not give you the right to be the sole spokesman of 120 million Indian Muslims. Do the Shias accept your verdict? Do the Barelwis follow your diktat? Do the Muslim farmers in Assam or the fishermen on the Kerala coast know you? No, they don’t. Can you deliver votes for any political party from the Mallapuram district? No Imam Sahib, you can’t.

If so, how does anybody conclude that you represent the authentic voice of Islam in India? Somebody must answer. My explanation is this: our political classes repeat the mistakes made in the past. By negotiating with priests and politicians whose organisational base and political stature are by no means assured, they perpetuate their legitimacy as spokespersons of the whole community. Rather than forcing them into a situation where they are required to demonstrate their implied support, they refuse to draw out the conditions for such a confrontation. In the process, the weight of orthodoxy stifles the liberal voices among Muslims. This was exemplified by the Shah Bano affair, and by my own personal experience at the Jamia Millia Islamia. In the event, the conservative Muslim establishment, backed by the non-left formations, tasted the fruits of ‘victory’.

Let me turn to the relentless US bombing of Afghanistan. First, silence should not be construed as acquiescence in violence against the civilian population. Second, you should draw comfort from the strong body of opinion in this country spearheaded not by the Muslims but by vocal liberal-left groups that has lambasted American policies in Palestine and Iraq, and protested against the loss of civilian lives in Afghanistan. Instead, you raise the battle cry from the safety of the great mosque. Why? Some years ago, you committed a colossal blunder by asking Muslims to boycott the Republic Day celebrations. Now, your monumental folly is to call for jihad against the Anglo-Saxon world.

It is distasteful to talk of ‘holy’ wars in this day and age. What, if the sangh parivar declares dharmayug for ‘liberating’ their sacred sites? You and I will run for cover. The usage of expressions like kafir is equally unacceptable. Surely, the future of a great religion does not depend on taking recourse to such offensive categories. Surely, the Islamic personality of an individual can be developed and refined without conjuring up the false image of ‘unbelievers’ ready to strike at the faithful.

Imam Sahib, soothe rather than inflame passions. Develop a different vocabulary to convey the community’s fears and aspirations, and reject, once and for all, the binary opposition inherent in the idea of dar al-Islam (land of Islam) and dar al-harb (land of war). Have you heard of the call for hijrat (migration) to Afghanistan, the dar al-Islam, during the Khilafat movement in the early 1920s? It was an adventurist campaign with disastrous results. While the divines stayed put in their homes digging into the qorma and biryani, scores of their Muslim brethren died of hunger and cold during their trek through the rugged mountains. Their Afghan hosts put them in jail before sending them back to India.

An ideal world envisioned by the scriptures is out of our reach. And yet let’s create a better world for ourselves by popularising the idea of a dar al-aman (land of peace). Let Islam flourish along with other religious creeds. For us, the Muslim intelligentsia, the real challenge is to move beyond the somewhat simplistic approach of deploring and denouncing the West. In the present-day worldwide context, let us be vigilantly self-critical and aware of our historical and political situatedness. Let us challenge many obsolete ideas and concepts that impede progress and espouse the cause of democracy, human rights, empowerment of women, and equal rights to the minorities. If we shirk our responsibility, you and I will become unwitting collaborators in Islamist ideologies whose costs to Muslim societies have been no less brutal than those of colonial domination.

Please do not stand in the way of those Muslims who wish to pursue without impediment the full development of their capacities and to contribute to their societies in all domains. I respectfully reiterate that we need to develop a variety of subtle analytical perspectives and positions in order to address problems afflicting Muslim societies: poverty, illiteracy, obscurantism, and the exploitation and social confinement of Muslim women. If public opinion is mobilised, it must be directed against feudal/monarchical regimes that seek legitimacy from Islam.

Admittedly, many of us, Hindus and Muslims alike, feel agitated over certain issues. So do you. When that happens, walk up to Maulana Azad’s mausoleum or the shrine of Sarmad, the Sufi martyr of Aurangzeb’s reign. Learn from them the values of liberal humanism and tolerance and pay heed to the following verse Azad quoted in his essay on Sarmad:

Zuhiri’s breast is full to the brim with the love of the beloved.
No place is left in my heart for hating my rivals.
Meanwhile let the cameras stop clicking, and let the tape-recorders be switched off at the Jama masjid. Khuda Hafiz!

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