This is to bring to your notice that the hadith quoted by V.M. Khaleelur Rahman in his letter (Radiance, July 15-21) is baseless. The so-called hadith is a fabricated one. One may like or love even his cat. But it need not be part and parcel of Iman. It has clearly been defined by the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah. In fact, Islam moulds a global citizen whose vision is above all barriers – national, linguistic, ethnic and class. Patriotism is sometimes linked with nationalism, which is the root cause of World Wars I and II. It is blind addiction to the geographical map.
Before 1947 a person in Karachi was considered an Indian. But after partition he is treated as an enemy of India. Similarly, a person in Dacca was a Pakistani. And after the creation of Bangladesh, he is treated as an enemy of Pakistan. Years back, East Germany and West Germany were two separate nations hating each other. Now they have merged. South and North Yemen were two nations. Now it is a single nation. The two Koreas are likely to merge into one nation. The USSR was a strong nation. Now there are several nations governing this part of the earth. European Union is a step to overcome the narrow-mindedness of nationalism.
Several Indian leaders and writers have put forward an idea of Indo-Pak-Bangla confederation. In short, nations may come and vanish. It is not stable. Then the love for one’s nation is not stable at all. Now the world has become a village. Migration is going on at a large scale. To attribute senseless narrow visions to some religious belief may harm the divine religion. Islam is not only for Indians but for whole mankind irrespective of national and ethnic identities. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be with him) has warned that whoever attributes to him the sentences and ideas which he did not say may reserve his seat in the hell. It is noteworthy that various scholars including Mullah Ali Qari, the scholar who wrote commentary for the hadith collection Mishkath, have listed this hadith as a concocted one.
P.P. Abdurahman, Peringadi
Zonal Nazim, Kerala