The chimeral moderate

A few weeks ago, the world with agog with parallel tales of terror and destruction; the ISIS led massacres of minorities across Iraq and of destruction wreaked by Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Some aspects of these two series of events were similar - families uprooted, children and women killed, destitution which follows war. The theatre was common and also common was the thread of Islamic thought as one of the factors driving the conflicts. The similarities stop here. Scale and impact-wise, there was little which was common between the toll at Gaza and casualties in Iraq. While the death toll at Gaza was an unfortunate but direct result of the Hamas using civilians as shields, the humanitarian tragedy of Iraq was a direct consequence of the rebirth of Islamic Caliphate.

One would have expected the world to react with horror and revulsion. It would not have been very far off the mark to visualize world over, rallies being organised, human chains formed, mass protests organised, community prayers conducted, and assembling of feet on street to fight the savages, all symbolizing an outright rejection of the theology ISIS stands for.

Sadly but perhaps expectedly, the only action on street was a series of organised protests, both by Muslims and left-liberal intelligentsia against Israeli actions in Gaza. The media was afire with sob stories of human casualties in the occupied land, how little children were deprived of milk and their childhood, how innocent civilians were being butchered by Israel. Yet, from this same bunch, nary a tear was shed for the victims of ISIS’s civilisational wars, neither from the eyes of the ‘oppressed’ Muslim world, nor from the eyes of their countess apologists and Islamophiles.

Some of the more brazen (read shameless) among the left-liberal groups might argue that many statements ‘condemning’ ISIS’s actions had been issued by the intelligentsia. Some will haughtily proclaim that even ISIS, like Taliban, is an outcome of American interventions and hence the world will have to suffer again. While there can be little to argue with people who can even think of offering such excuses, it must be noted that given the outrageously high scale of difference in between Gaza and Iraq, a mere condemnation of the latter as against frothing protests on the former, only shows the extent of lip service being offered to the cause of freedom. As regards the genesis of ISIS, even if it were an illegitimate child sired with the vilest of ill-intentions, the hands which killed, maimed, enslaved and raped were still of ISIS and not the USA.

For those who follow affairs of the world, the left-liberal hypocrisy won’t come as a surprise. Not only in India, in human theatres across the world, has this group displayed its duplicity and hypocrisy many a times over. Even otherwise, the left-liberal intelligentsia has vitiated the public discourse so much that any attempt to critique Islam, attempt to analyse the Black culture in US, attempt to question the aggressive caste politics of the erstwhile depressed classes in India, is certain to attract howls of accusations around racism, casteism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, blah, blah!

While even the minutest of efforts in trying to show reason to these label-loving intelligent beings is bound to go waste, the independent and the ideologically agnostic must pause and mull over the non-existence of a mythical being, the moderate Muslim.

Most of the population seems to believe that like the vast majority of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and other religion practitioners, the vast majority of Muslims too are liberals by heart, little concerned about anything other than their quality of life. And since these people are not fanatics, they must know what the true spirit of Islam is and so, would be repelled at the very thought that the religion of peace has been hijacked by some blood-thirsty loonies and stand shoulder to shoulder with rest of the world to protect human lives and dignity.

Yet, this supposed silent majority is so silent that even a ghost’s whisper would create more noise in comparison. Take a dipstick of Muslims you know. Rest assured, close to a unanimous majority of those Muslims, who are aware of the Gaza issue, will blame Israel completely. Without exception would their hearts beat for the innocent lives lost in Palestine and for those killed in drone attacks in Af-Pak. Yet, when prodded about Boko Haram, ISIS, Taliban or the Al Qaida, the more polished would offer an easy silence, at max, an uncertain but qualified condemnation –‘what they are doing is wrong but…’

Can these moderate Muslims stand up and say as to why the interpretation of Quranic verses and Hadith by these terrorist organisations are incorrect and how? Can they denounce the fact and organize a struggle to stop Muslims from all ranks of life, from across the world, pleading allegiance to ISIS, teaming up to join their group? Can they and the supposedly enlightened ulema stand with conviction and denounce the practice of forced conversions, genocide, sexual slavery as acts beyond the pale of humanity?

Unlikely; nay, Impossible!

The very simple reason is – ISIS and its sister organisations are doing simply what Quran and the Hadith command. Any Muslim, who is even remotely religious, cannot then condemn as their acts being contrary to Islam. As regards people who are more religious, well, they find those otherwise repulsive acts to be a mere replication of what happened in Arabia some 1400 years back.

Is it not presumptuous of the independent-minded and the moderates from other religions to assume that somehow they know more of what Islam says and stands for? They, who have no clue of what shuras and the hadith enjoin, as compared to those from the Taliban, the ISIS etc., people who have spent their entire lives in understanding and then living the Islamic theology?

The sad truth is – the ummah, irrespective of the social class or the economic background of the practitioner, stands as one on the question of kufr and the divine right of Muslims to rule the world. Any supposed attack of Islam, be it an ineffectual set of cartoons of the Prophet, or an even more insignificant event, the result is a sea of murderous mobs on streets across the world, thirsting for revenge.

If it sounds hyperbolic, consider this. A few days back, a few devout Muslim women, covered in hijab, held placards in front of a mosque in Bhopal, appealing fellow Muslims to forego animal sacrifice this Id. Point to be highlighted – mere placards held by Muslim women, appealing fellow Muslims for an Id without animal sacrifice. Granted, many, who believe sacrifice to be intrinsic to Id, would be offended. But, the result of these placards was an attack on the women, their molestation and subsequent justification by the supposedly moderate Muslims, that Muslims were provoked into reacting the way they did.

Now, if the supposed silent majority are so much with the vocal supposedly, minority on almost all issues of importance, is it too much of a stretch of imagination to conclude that these imagination of a group of moderate Muslims is precisely that – an imagination, a chimera!

Some might still argue that there are indeed moderate thoughts among the Muslims. Of course, there are. But, most of these moderate strains of Islam are in those regions which continue to be heavily influenced by their Hindu/pagan past. The more you Arabicise Islam, that is, bring Islam truer to its moorings, the more rigid it becomes. In the vast lands of India, Bangladesh, North Africa and South East Asia, there are numerous organisations like Ahl-e-Hadith, which are precisely doing that. Making ‘true’ Muslims of people who are currently, Muslim only in name but culturally, close to the land of their forefathers. Till the time they do not start believing and acting like their brethren of the Arabian deserts, they can never be true Muslims.

And indeed, of the 4 schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the Hanafi, Shafi’i, Hanbali and Maliki, Hanafi is seem as more liberal in treatment of non-believers as compared to the Shafi school. But, is it really liberal? When you consider that the for the Hanafi school, their liberalism (among many), lies in ‘granting’ the right of life to the Hindus (including Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs), in lieu of humiliating payment of jaziya, when the more puritan Shafi school would precise either of conversion or death?

If we consider Hanafi to be liberal, that would only mean that we have accepted that Islam would be more aggressive and more demanding; that non-Muslims can treat any concession as only some manna from heaven.

It is revolting that the Islamic apologists (read left-liberal brigade), defend atrocities in the name of Islam more doggedly than Muslims themselves (arguments on the lines of – they were provoked… they were oppressed.. it was not really religion…etc.). It is even more revolting that these apologists defend the silence of the supposedly moderate Muslims, claiming that they are under no obligation to protest against crimes committed in the name of Islam.

Very sorry to say, but they are. They are under this obligation firstly because they need to prove that they exist. They are even more of an obligation to prove that they are sincere. They need to stand up and say that irrespective of what the Quran and the Hadith say, Muslims should not, and will not, act in ways which are against basic human decencies. The way no amount of whitewashing will justify the ills of untouchability in Hinduism and the brutal medieval history of Christianity, no amount of beating around the bush will solve the problem of certain Islamic thoughts being against the civilisational virtues we stand for. There is lot of be proud of about Islam. There is a lot of positive which Islam has taught the world and continues to teach. Yet, these positives do not whitewash and stand independent of the goodness of Islamic thought. If the world can become a dangerous place because mobs across the world protest against any real or imagined slight to Islam, these protestors also owe to the world, their support of those who are being raped, killed, exiled, forcibly made to give up religion of their forefathers, simply because they happen to be non-Muslims or Muslims from the ‘wrong’ denomination. If the mythical moderate Muslim does exist, let him fight for the right causes, or simply, be true, to what he believes is the true meaning of his religion of peace.

As regards India, in words of Will Durant - ‘The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history of mankind’. In addition to being at the receiving end of invasions and the consequent proselytizing zeal of its invaders, India has, not long back, lived through the horrors of what a Caliphate would be like. The Mopallah revolt of 1921, which started off as an offshoot of the Khilafat movement, soon morphed into a jehad. A Caliphate was declared and consequently, Hindus, who are dhimmis par excellence under all the 4 schools of Islamic jurisprudence, had to revisit the fate which their ancestors in different parts of India had faced many a times over in the last 1200 years. In words of Dr Annie Besant – ‘Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India.’ It was nothing but ironical that it was finally the hated British, against who the freedom struggle was being led, who clamped down on the bloodthirsty, jehad-crazed mopallah with an iron hand.

Many apologists of Islam claim that had Islamic rule really been barbaric, it would not have succeeded in extending its rule over large swathes of the world in less than 100 years of Islam taking form. But, it was precisely this barbarism, which facilitated growth of the Islamic empire. In any clash between the civilized and the barbarians, it is the civilized who are held back by the rules of civilization. The barbarians, free of such encumbrances, emboldened by primitive blood lust and promise of loot (wealth and women), will invariably triumph. Kingdom after kingdom fell to the marauding armies of Islam, which offered the vanquished population little option but conversion, slavery or death. Today’s growth and consolidation of ISIS owes much to its adopting the means of those early Islamic armies. Savages lose only when they are confronted with people with greater savagery. E.g. Islamic rules falling to Mongol hordes. Or, alternately, when confronted with a determined adversary, who has no illusions on the nature or intent of such barbarians.

Sadly, with our National consciousness geared to beat breasts only for Gaza, difficult to foresee on why the land of Hind won’t be under Caliphate rule sooner or later.