`These are not imaginary dialogues`
I have been sharing whatever knowledge I have about security threat to India from Internal and External forces which believe in solidification of the Islamic Umma. Forces which believe it is a holy duty to carry out jihad against Dar-ul-Harb Hindustan, an imperative to create another Muslim Homeland out of present India and restore the glory of Islam all over South Asia and turn it into the main hub of an Islamic Caliphate.
These are not imaginary dialogues. These can be found in several web portals managed by the Islamists and working ethos and philosophy of scores of Islamist tanzeems.
My views are not those of an alleged, ‘rightist communal Hindu reactionary,’ as some national and international members of the Markaz-ud-Dawa-al-Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, Ahl-e-Hadith, Taliban, Al Qaeda and other tanzeems prefer to describe me.
Some others, who try to go by the nametag of secular intellectuals, prefer to call me a rabid communalist. The ruling parties consider me as a systemic pariah. No problem. The national garbage bin is better than any Swiss Vault. I am not worried about the honorifics awarded to me.
I am not a hater of anything except immoral social behavior and anything that challenges the integrity of my country. The people who call me names happily forget that soon after the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai in 2007, I was the one Hindu who dared to assist the Deoband luminaries and organise a congregation of all their Ulamas at the Parliament Annex Hall in August 2007, to bring the leaders in touch with several opinion makers and important personalities. The Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister had addressed that session. Sadly, except for one representative from All India Muslim Personal Law Board, no other Islamic theo-religious and theopolitical organisation agreed to associate with the initiative of the Darul Uloom Deoband.
The Deoband School took the lead again on February 25, 2008 when the Seminary issued a fatwa against “all acts of terrorism.”
Saud Alam Qasmi, dean of Theology at the Aligarh Muslim University welcomed the fatwa. “The fatwa should be welcomed by the entire Islamic world,” felt Maulana Yasin Mazhar Siddiqui, a senior Islamic theologist who believes that revenge killing of innocent people is unambiguously prohibited by the Holy Quran.
Then on April 27, 2008 the Deoband’s fatwa department head Mufti Habibur said that the Shariat disallowed anything against law. “Cow slaughter, therefore, was `najayaz` even though Islam allows beef-eating,” the fatwa said. It said any act which brought bad name to the community or evoked the possibility of imprisonment was `haram` and should be avoided.
Image: The Special Hall of Guest House where the Advisory Board of the Darul Uloom Deoband holds its meetings. (Picture from the official Darul Deoband site.)
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