In the wake of the militant challenge to Prof Mushirul Hasan just because he has dared express doubt regarding the effectiveness of the ban on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, there has arisen among Muslims in Patna a controversy on whether the central Islamic concept of kafir applies to Hindus in India. This dispute is as illustrative of the division among educated Muslims as the one in Delhi and it is as important for the future of the Muslim community and indeed of India. It, therefore, deserves similar attention. Since it has, to my knowledge, been reported by only one English language daily in the Capital, the Times of India, at the time of writing, it would be in order to give a brief background.
Prof SM Mohsin has written a book entitled Keynote of the Holy Quran disputing that the Arabic word kafir stands for non-Muslims and that the Quran urges Muslims to wage a war on them. The word, according to him, derives from three letters ka-fa-ra and literally means rejection. The English translation ‘disbeliever’ or ‘non-believer’, he argues, fails to convey the true sense of the word in Arabic.
While formally releasing the book, Dr Abid Raza Bedar, director of the well-known Khuda Baksh Library, drew attention to Prof Mohsin’s elucidation of the word kafir. On Prof Bedar’s own statement, he was keen to rebut the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s charge that the Quran calls upon Muslims to “kill kafirs (Hindus) or avoid them since they are majlis (unholy)”. This has attracted the ire of some Muslims. Mr Rizwan Ahmed, editor of the Azimabad Express, for instance, has written: “No one has the right to challenge the Quran. And by raising objections over the Quran, Dr Bedar has joined the company of Salman Rushdie and Prof Mushirul Hasan.”
The controversy by itself is, of course, not new. Indeed, it is as old in India as Islam. Those with even a most casual knowledge of Islam would know that while Prophet Mohammad’s attitude towards ahl-i-kitab (people of the book, meaning Christians and Jews), as reflected in the Quran, is by no means consistent, Muslim theologians have generally drawn a distinction between “people of the book” and others (those without a book which sums up their faith) to the disadvantage of the latter. And with the rare exception of some Muslims who have held that Mohammad could not have included Hindus among kafirs for the obvious reason that he could not have been aware of the nature of their faith, the broad consensus has been Hindus are kafirs.
Greatest threat to Islam
Not to speak, however, of emperor Akbar who withdrew jizya (poll tax) on Hindus, the theological distinction between ahl-i-kitab and others was not particularly relevant in India during the Muslim rule. Hindu kafirs were no worse than ahl-i-kitab subjects of Muslim rulers elsewhere. Both had to pay jizya and be content with the second class status of dhimmis. After the end of the Mughal empire, Muslims in the subcontinent were in no position to live by the injunctions of the Quran, as interpreted by theologians. All these concepts – jihad, dhimmis, kafirs – are relevant when Muslims are in power or striving to capture power. They are meaningless in contexts such as British India or independent India, except as invitation to disaster.
It is difficult to believe that it serves Hindu interests to recall these theological formulations even if they can be said to explain the behaviour of fanatics among Muslims. To the contrary, it would be to their long-term advantage if they were to endorse liberal Muslim interpretations of the Quran which seek to emphasise the peaceful aspect of Islam, even if not quite accurately in terms of history.
Even so, it is at least understandable that faced with Muslim unwillingness to accommodate Hindus on the Ramjanma Bhoomi issue, the VHP should speak to rouse Hindu opinion by underscoring the point that concepts such as jihad and kafir are the foundations of Islam. The ‘anxiety’ of some Muslim intellectuals and leaders to support VHP-type interpretations of Islam is truly baffling. As Prof Hasan has pointed out, they constitute the greatest threat to Islam and Muslims.
But it is perhaps just as well that these issues have once again been brought into the open since pushing them under the carpet has not helped. Indeed, the escapist approach has promoted a situation in which an overwhelming majority of commentators and political activists know precious little about Muslim political vocabulary, concepts and history. It is, for instance, notable that the politics of secularism should be discussed and sought to be practised in the Indian context without any reference to concepts such as jihad and kafir. Muslim liberals, too, have shied away from them till now.
Politics of Jihad
If the signals from New Delhi and Patna in north India are mixed, two from below the Vindhyas are clear and positive. First, the high-power committee of the Indian Union Muslim League has publicly described the Islamic Sevak Sangh (ISS) centred in southern districts of Kerala as a militant organisation and called upon Muslims to stay away from its activities. Secondly, Mr Sultan Salauddin Owaisi, president of Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen and Chairman of the All India Babri Masjid Action Committee, appears to be preparing to play a major role in Muslim politics. The fire-brand of yesteryears now speaks the language of the Constitution and law.
To describe the Islamic Sevak Sangh as a militant organisation is an understatement. It was, by most accounts, responsible for widespread riots in southern Kerala last April following an explosion in a mosque in Faizabad, in faraway UP. According to the Bharatiya Janata Party president, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, the riots began before the report of explosion reached Delhi or Lucknow. If this was indeed the case, it speaks of something quite sinister. In any event, the ISS has all the makings of a terrorist organisation.
The threat is by no means over. Other factors apart, the national president of the League, Mr Ibrahim Sulaiman Sait, has spoken in support of the ISS and he was not present at the meeting of the committee when it denounced the ISS. The League’s Kerala unit must also have been influenced by the twin facts that the ISS has been trying to upstage it in areas of its influence, and it is a partner in the Congress-led State Government which has reasons to be disturbed by the activities of the ISS. Even so, the committee’s resolution is a welcome development.
Generalisations are dangerous and should, as a rule, be avoided. But if it is permissible to speak of the Muslim mind, it can reasonably be said that it hovers between realism, utopianism and adventurism. In today’s India, Muslim liberals are the realists and their opponents Utopians and adventurists. The Muslim utopia is firmly located in the first less than 50 years of Islamic history – Mohammad’s Medina period, when he took on the role of the armed Prophet and rule of the first four “rightly guided” caliphs. Not all those who hark back to that period are theoreticians and practitioners of the politics of Jihad. But all theoreticians and practitioners of that kind of suicidal politics hark back to that period. Muslim liberals recognise its dangerous consequences and seek to avoid them.
The Pioneer, 8 June 1992