Skip to main content

Needed an Islamic Reformation

 

Image 

Creator: Max Slaven 
Copyright: Street Level Photoworks


This morning broke with two messages about Muslims in India. The first was Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar’s article in the Times of India and the other was a WhatsApp message. Both reveal an acute concern of non-Muslims about the backwardness of Muslims in India and the problems engendered by that backwardness.

Aiyar’s article is an open letter to Asaduddin Owaisi who recently lamented the pathetic condition of Indian Muslims vis-à-vis education. Aiyar rightly argues that the Muslims must help themselves in this matter as the Christians did long ago. “Instead of depending on the state,” Aiyar writes, “Christians have long created their own educational institutions of excellence.” Even today, when Ram Raj is enforcing itself on the nation, Christian educational institutions remain in high demand among non-Christians. “Hindus and Muslims pull all possible strings to get into them,” says Aiyar.

The Muslim community in India is capable of running their own educational institutions like the Christians. There are a few institutions of eminence like the Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Milia Islamia, and Osmania. Aiyar also mentions the good work done by Kerala’s Muslim Educational Society which runs many schools and colleges efficiently.

Why can’t the Muslims in India use their abundant wealth lying in the Waqf Boards as well as the generosity of the country’s affluent Muslims who are generous with their zakat donations for setting up good modern schools and colleges instead of primitive madrasas? Why not start with 200 top-class schools right away, Aiyar asks.

I’m with Aiyar heart and soul in this. Religions in India spend a lot of money on absurd things like ostentatious places of worship and propaganda. Why not spend that money on educating the children of the believers?

The WhatsApp message that came in a cliquish group to which I happen to belong raises concerns about the controversial love jihad that is apparently converting a lot of non-Muslims in Kerala using trickery and fraudulence. The message has chilling statistics too. I checked the veracity of the message and found that much of the statistics was exaggerated and was rejected long ago by the National Investigation Agency. Nevertheless, love jihad is a reality. Unsuspecting young girls fall prey to the traps laid by certain malevolent forces with strong religious backing. Many such girls end up in terrorist groups like the IS.

The first thing that the Muslims should stop is this fraudulence if they wish to bring any sort of progress and development to their community. Bring education instead. Too much religion is of no use to anyone. It has never done any good at any time to any people. History can show you that without any doubt. Religion is like any other intoxicant: good within limits and toxic beyond the limits.

Comments

  1. The Moon's BOYFRIEND August 30, 2020 at 11:58 AM

    A friend of mine still tells me that jihad simply means the struggle for knowledge, I just don't know why some people give different meanings to it and use them like arrows.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 30, 2020 at 1:34 PM

      Jihad has 3 different meanings one of which self-improvement. That's the 1st, in fact. 2nd is community improvement. 3rd is what the terrorists claim to do: improve others.

      Delete
    2. The Moon's BOYFRIEND August 30, 2020 at 2:31 PM

      So, in their eyes anyone who aren't interested to come to their side are sinners!!

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 30, 2020 at 2:49 PM

      Isn't that what most religions do? Hinduism was an exception. Modi has succeeded in degrading that religion too.

      Delete
  2. जितेन्द्र माथुरAugust 31, 2020 at 7:29 AM

    Religion beyond the limits is, to be plain and straight, lethal. I echo your thoughts as I have also maintained the same kind of thoughts for long and discussed with my Muslim friends.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 31, 2020 at 9:44 AM

      I have a lot of Muslim students. I find that the boys are more progressive than girls though the latter score more marks in exams. The girls seem to love the hijab and orher restrictions imposed on them!

      Delete
    2. Stay Home Stay SafeAugust 31, 2020 at 9:47 PM

      i am a muslim i think they should first ban all those hijabs.

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 1, 2020 at 5:34 AM

      Any reform in religion can only come from within. Good to see you make this suggestion.

      Delete
    4. Stay Home Stay SafeSeptember 1, 2020 at 10:46 PM

      there are a lot of stereotypes, but now they are getting educated

      Delete
    5. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 2, 2020 at 8:06 AM

      Stereotypes are as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. But I also observe carefully beyond stereotypes. I question stereotypes. I check facts before I raise issues. The plain truth is that Muslims tend to be parochial and ultra-conservative. They don't take as much interest in education as other communities. They tend to turn a blind eye to the progress all around and stick to their ghettos and the ghetto mentality.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...
8 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...
12 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more