PROF. U MUHAMMAD IQBAL analyses two approaches to communal violence offered by Jug Suraiya and Twinkle Khanna and concludes that Muslims have not paid enough heed to the exalting injunction of Allah, “Hold fast together to the cable of Allah, and be not divided.”
Will you place on earth one who will spread mischief and shed blood?” (2:30) The angels ask God and their apprehensions about Adam and his progeny have not been wide of the mark as human history bears testimony. In the present times those apprehensions have assumed ominous proportions.
Scenes of religious violence evoke responses from two highly discerning and sensitive people. The responses mirror their beautiful minds which arrive at two different conclusions. I wonder if gender plays a role in creating the difference.
Let us see how the scenes are selected and described.
Jug Suraiya talks of the Crusades, the civil war in Buddhist Sri Lanka, Khalistan terrorism, the rise of the IS, the killing of rationalists in India and Bangladesh by Hindu and Islamist fanatics. The list of the incidents has global and multi-religious dimensions. (The Times of India, Sept 22, 2015, p.14)
Twinkle Khanna is emotionally perturbed by the scenes of violence within India and the conflicts between two communities. She refers to the following: “2000 men with axes, petrol and country-made pistols rioting at Atali village in Ballabhgarh and attacking Muslims gathered to pray; a young Hindu man killed for marrying a Muslim girl in Bihar this year; a Muslim boy brutally beaten up by Hindu vigilantes for posing with his Hindu classmates; and a fatwa against AR Rahman for composing music for a film called Muhammad the Messenger of God. Not to forget the love jihads and other jihads, all trying to convert or eradicate the other.” The instances are selected with a fine sense of balance.
The conclusions both of them draw from these scenes are quite interesting for their difference and variety and provide Muslims with points to ponder.
The holy Qur’ān narrates scenes of religious violence too. One scene is given as an example. “The people of the pit were destroyed with fire abounding in fuel, while they sat around it and were witnessing what they did to the believers. Against these they had no grudge except that they believed in Allah, the Most Mighty, the Most Praiseworthy, to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. Allah witnesses everything.
Surely those who tormented the believing men and the believing women and then did not repent, theirs shall be the chastisement of Hell, and theirs shall be the chastisement of burning.” (85:4-10) The Qur’ān is condemning here the persecution of the Christians by a Jewish Himyarite King.
Jug Suraiya invokes socio-biologists to prove that religions struggle for survival and prevail over weaker religions when they are stronger. The strength comes from numbers, internal solidarity and commitment to convictions.
Twinkle Khanna refers to love jihads and other jihads and concludes, “All trying to convert or eradicate the other.” Jug Suraiya puts the idea in his own words, “Violence, latent or manifest, lay at the heart of all religious creeds.”
Islam began with one man and, after a grim struggle for survival lasting 23 years, prevailed finally in the Arabian peninsula. The process leading to the ultimate triumph was marked by indescribable persecution, martyrdom, and the Prophet’s migration to Madinah. According to Toynbee, hegira was the benchmark of failure. The Prophet’s enemies pursued him and inflicted battle after battle on him until they collected a huge army comprising several tribes of Arabia and laid siege to the city of Madinah, which survived against all odds. The Treaty of Hudaibiyah was signed even when its terms were disadvantageous to the cause of Islam.
The whole process was a steady strengthening of the weak under the repeated hammering and pounding of the strong, proving that God is not always on the side of the large armies. In all the battles with the Arabs up to the Battle of Hunayn, and in the battles with the empires of Byzantium and Persia, the Muslim armies were heavily outnumbered and ill-equipped. Still the tide turned in favour of Islam. The ultimate triumph of Islam was a miraculous triumph of Truth.
The victorious army of the Mongols laid low the Abbasid empire but surprisingly came within the fold of Islam. Where was the sword of Islam when the Mongols embraced the religion of the very people whom they had convincingly defeated? The new converts became the standard-bearers of Islam.
Compulsion in conversion is an abhorrent and despicable practice, according to Islam. There are statements galore in the Qur’ān underpinning this fact. “There is no compulsion in religion. The Right Way stands clearly distinguished from the wrong.”(2:256) It is an act of ignorance to force people to believe as it is against Allah’s will: (6:35, 10:99) The Prophet is not authorised to compel the unbelievers. (88:22) The Qur’ān is an advice and people are free to pay no heed to it. (73:19, 74:54,55, 80:11,12) “And proclaim: This is the Truth from your Lord. Now let him who will believe, and let him who will disbelieve.” (18:29) “Surely We showed him the Right Path, regardless of whether he chooses to be thankful or unthankful (to his Lord). (76:3) “To you is your religion, and to me, my religion.” (109:6)
Compulsion in matters of religion is counter-productive because it will produce insincere converts and they will be outwardly friendly but inwardly hostile towards those who have humiliated them by compelling them. In fact, the Qur’ān says that the opponents of Prophet Shuayb (unto him be peace) used the weapon of compulsion against him. “We shall certainly banish you… or else you shall return to our faith.” (7:88) Seven men took shelter in a cave because of the compulsion that they faced from their opponents. They resisted their aggressive demands to return to the polytheistic religion of their community.
Jug Suraiya says, “From the outset, religions were genetically programmed to vie with each other in fierce, often lethally violent competition.” If religions are messages from the only one God that the world has, then the theory of violent competition is ruled out ab initio. Daya/ mercy/ rahmah is the overarching attribute of God; He cannot instruct His servants to resort to bloodshed and massacre as an instrument of conversion. On the contrary, the Qur’ān recalls, “Therefore, We ordained for the children of Israel that he who slays a soul unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading mischief on earth shall be as if he had slain all mankind; and he who saves a life shall be as if he had given life to mankind.” (5:32) Mishnah Sanhedrin, 4:6, is alluded to here. Thus, Judaism and Islam are against violence and destruction.
Twinkle Khanna talks of a world, “divided by religion where battles are fought and monuments pulled down”. The monuments of Bamian and Palmyra were pulled down and this demolition was a deplorable political statement, not an execution of a religious order. Islam is, perhaps, the only religion that has scripturally proffered a hand of friendship to other religions, on the basis of adoration of God, who is a unifying force among religions. “Say: People of the Book! Come to a word common between us and you that we shall worship and serve none but Allah and shall associate none with Him in His Divinity and that some of us will not take others as lords other than Allah.”(3:64) This Qur’ānic excerpt contains an allusion to a Biblical statement, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” (Deut, 6:13, St. Matt. 5:10) The first chapter of the Qur’ān contains the following verse as though in response: “You alone do we worship and serve and You alone do we turn to for help.”
She also says that people “try to convert or eradicate the other.” Trying to convert is not against the Constitution; eradicating the other is. Islam says that conversion is not the duty of the Prophet (May Allah bless and greet him); conveying the message is. “He guides whosoever He pleases.”(39:23) The Prophet is ordered, “(O Prophet), call to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation and reason with them in the best manner possible.”(16:125) According to Islam, a Prophet is sent when it becomes absolutely necessary and when human agencies add new elements to God’s message and when those new elements become core concepts replacing the precepts of divine origin. The Prophet’s call is a call to the divine basics. About the eradication of the other, neither the Qur’ān nor the Constitution permits it.
She says, “The crucial question regarding who must show tolerance, who needs to be tolerated and who actually decides between the two, of course, still remains unanswered.” The crucial question comprises three questions. Differences in themselves may be an integral part of the natural order of things. We cannot wish them away. “Had your Lord so willed, He would surely have made mankind one community. But as things stand, they will not cease to differ among themselves and to follow erroneous ways.”(11:118) “Allah will judge among you on the Day of Resurrection concerning matters about which you disagreed.” (22:69)
She has hit the nail on the head when she says that the world has gone to pot because of “this sheer unfairness of tarring an entire sect of people with the same brush.” Islamophobia mirrors this unfairness at the global level. The Qur’ān does not stereotype the Jews and the Christians who were the rival groups.
“There are some among the People of the Book who will restore you even if you were to entrust a treasure of gold, and among them are also others who, were you to entrust one gold piece, will not restore it unless you stand over them.”(3:75) “Yet not all are alike among the people of the Book; there are upright people who believe in Allah and in the Last Day and enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and hasten to excel each other in doing good.” (3:113, 114) There are other verses too in praise of the People of the Book. The mindset that the Qur’ān builds is blissfully free from unfairness of every kind.
According to her, a simple tenet, “My belief is better than yours” has led to complications and destructive conflicts. Jug Suraiya prefers the phrase ‘a competitive claim’ to ‘a simple tenet’. One holds a belief different from others simply because he thinks his belief is indeed better. So everyone has a right to think that his belief has unmatched sublimity. One need not and should not question that right. Only when the sublime belief does not lead to sublime behaviour, the claim of sublimity for one’s belief becomes dubious. The tree is known by its fruit. Only distorted beliefs will lead to distorted actions pricking the conscience of mankind. Or the claim may be true but the claimant may have fallen short of the standard behaviour that the claim demanded of him.
Jug Suraiya prefers the word ‘subvert’ to ‘distort’. The authentic teachings of what he calls “spiritual masters” (I am thankful to him for including Prophet Muhammad among them; usually he is ignored) are subverted not only by their followers but also by others. Differences arose after knowledge had come to them. (45:17) The only option left is to go back to their authentic and untampered teachings.
He says that God is a needless hypothesis because belief in God does not necessarily make a believer good. One may believe and believe and yet be a villain. But then instead of questioning the quality of belief, some eminent intellectuals question God. They ignore the fact that God holds the very centre of things. If they dispense with Him, things will fall apart. I am afraid, three of the spiritual masters he has referred to will react to his suggestion that God is ‘a needless hypothesis’ with a grimace of pain. Those who ignore God will be ignored on the Day of Judgment. God’s advice is, “So remember Me and I shall remember you; give thanks to Me and do not be ungrateful to Me for My favours.”(2:152) “So on that Day We shall forget them in the manner they forget their meeting of this Day with Us and persisted in denying Our revelations.” (7:51)
The Qur’ān says, “Excel one another in good deeds.” (2:148) Jug Suraiya is convinced that religions ‘vie with each other in fierce, often lethally violent, competition.’ His solution, therefore, is: “Atheism as a form of consciousness-raising is an affirmation of spiritual transcendence.” He may not agree with this equation, La Ilaha = Atheism; Illallah = Affirmation of spiritual transcendence.
The Qur’ān says about the Muslim community, “You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah.” (3:110) They should function as a catalyst for the betterment of mankind. Twinkle Khanna’s solution is to avoid communities indulging in violence and to be reborn as a member of that community whose hands are not tainted with human blood. That community in her eyes is the Parsi community. She describes that community as ‘the most sorted bunch of people’. In Arabic, her phrase can be translated as ‘Khair-e-ummat’.(3:110) The Qur’ān perceives the Muslim community as Khair-e-ummat but the world’s perception is different. O for the Day when the Qur’ān’s perception is the world’s perception!
The solutions offered are a pointer to the fact that Muslims have not paid enough heed to the exalting injunction of Allah, “Hold fast together to the cable of Allah, and be not divided.” (3:103)