I have often wondered why our liberal and enlightened intelligentsia and elite, as well as their moderate versions, happen to be allergic to the word Islam. They do find not much harm in declaring themselves as Muslims, but when it comes to ‘practising’ Islam, they instantly go into a hectic search for arguments in the defence of their ‘secular’ preferences. To them ‘secularism’ means ‘the state of staying clear of Islam’. Just as for them it is not essential to believe in, and practise Islam, to qualify to be a Muslim. Islam, in their opinion, begins with a declared resignation to the fact that we are Muslims.
And it ends there. Perhaps they never bother to ask themselves how a person can be called or accepted as an intellectual if he or she has no intellect. Or if is miserly in expressing it. To me, and to most non-enlightened ‘traditionalists’, ‘conformists’ or ‘fundamentalists’ like me, Shakespeare is recognized as a poet and a dramatist because he wrote poetry and dramas. Hadn’t he written any poetry or drama, who would have called him a poet or a dramatist? Or even known his name? Exactly the same way, a Muslim cannot be a Muslim if doesn’t believe in Islam, or in the minimum believes in making an effort to practise it.
As far as ‘secularism’ is concerned, it is one of the basic ingredients of Islamic faith. The first written constitution of the world – the Charter of Madina – is a living testimony to the fact that in an Islamic state and under an Islamic code of society – all faiths can co-exist with guaranteed security for each. To the best of my knowledge Islam’s and the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) most determined and callous foe in Madina – Abdullah Bin Obay was not only never ‘questioned’, but also never taken to task.
He was widely detested, but enjoyed full freedom and sense of security. That in my opinion is ‘secularism’ in politically practised form. Declaring yourself a secular – and then waging a war on Islam — condemning Islamists as terrorists – is the crudest form of secularism. For most Muslims, to be a Muslim and to be an Islamist is one and the same thing. As far as the charge of ‘terrorism’ is concerned, it can be made to stick to those who are resisting ‘imperial designs’ and ‘British occupation’, it should also be made to stick to those who are engaged in consolidating ‘occupationism’ by force – from Palestine to Iraq to Afghanistan (with Iran and Pakistan as future targets?) In this context, I find it necessary to mention that Islam does not consist in the length and the breadth of a beard. In my view a man called Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a hundred times more Islamic than his ‘Islamic’ critics.
17-03-2014
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