Reforms take off but Ummah at a crossroads
Anything rigid is apt to break, as communism did. Anything that does not change with time is apt to shrink. It applies to religions, too
My sympathies go out to some of my Muslim friends who have been true momins and have lived through their religion, which is now approaching an era of flux. On the one hand, Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, or MBS, has abolished Friday as the day of rest and prayer. The entire Abrahamic world has had a tradition of allotting one fixed day of the week as a day of Sabbath since the time of Prophet Abraham. The great man asked the Jews only to rest and pray on Saturdays, and not work. When Christianity appeared on the world stage, the apostles chose Sunday. The Muslim Caliphs were taken up with Friday and with afternoon prayers, accompanied by the khutba, which the imam delivers to communicate with the worshippers, standing on the steps, called the mimbar. In the pre-technological era, this was about the only means of communication between the leaders and the followers.
With the advent of technology, the khutba is no longer indispensable. So presumably believes Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia. He has abolished Friday as the weekly holiday in his country. Women are now free to drive cars in the kingdom; unmarried couples are free to occupy hotel rooms. The Sharia has been amended whereby minors will no longer be punished with death for any crime. Flogging, too, has been replaced with prison time, fines and community service.
Salman’s Saudi Arabia is home to the Hejaz, where Mecca and Medina are situated. One must remember that the king of Saudi Arabia is the guardian of these two holy places. The lid on taqlid, or orthodoxy, which was placed some thousand years ago, is off. The era of reforms has begun to take off.
One leader who violated taqlid and subjected his country to drastic reforms was Mustafa Kemal Pasha, popularly known as Atatürk. He came to power in Turkey soon after World War I ended. He told his people that Turkey’s future lay with Europe. He exhorted his country’s menfolk to dress in lounge suits and womenfolk in skirts and blouses. He abolished the Arabic script for the Turkish language, all in a matter of three months. The Quran was re-written in the Roman script, just as the Turkish language. Kemal Pasha introduced Western-style democracy, replacing the Ottoman autocracy. Atatürk’s vision has sadly not been followed by the present ruler, Erdogan; consequently Turkey’s dream of being admitted into the Europe Union and becoming a western country has crashed.
In contrast to the tale of reform told above, our neighbours Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially the former, have chosen orthodoxy, if not also obscurantism, as their pathway to destiny. Both call themselves Islamic republics and both desecrate, demolish temples as though they are siding with Emperor Aurangzeb. These two States came together, separated from India in 1947, to fall apart from each other in 1971. We still wonder what happened to the Two-Nation Theory — Hindus’ and Muslims’ — so eloquently advocated, first by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, seconded by poet Mohammad Iqbal and taken to its climax by Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The myth that Muslims are one people was exploded by the Mukti Bahini of Bangladesh.
Abrahamism needs a CT scan to know why Judaism, membered by arguably the most brilliant people in the world, has shrunk so exponentially. Why has Christianity scattered into so many denominations and lost some of its followers very perceptibly in Europe? Why has Islam antagonised so many countries in five of the six continents? Arguably, the fourth sibling, Marxism, packed its bags hastily. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Had William Shakespeare been commenting on the Abrahamic ideologies or outlooks, these famous lines of his would aptly describe them.
A British visitor once tried to explain to me that anything which is rigid is apt to crack and break, as communism did. Anything firm, on the other hand, tends to scatter. Anything that does not change with the sands of time is apt to shrink. When frustrated with changelessness, some people cry out to quit their faith. Filmmaker Ali Akbar of Kerala is one who has quit. As a good Indian, he could not bear the sight of people smiling at the recent helicopter crash over the Nilgiris. This phenomenon of smiling at such a national tragedy indicates that there are young men and women in India who feel happy when the country suffers misfortune. They were possibly there in the days of Babasaheb Ambedkar who, incidentally, did not wish to die a Hindu. He, therefore, converted to another religion long before his death. When he began thinking, he summarily put aside Christianity and Islam. Ambedkar said that since these faiths had been born outside India, they might have a denationalising effect on his followers. His choice eventually fell on Buddhism. A person quitting her/his religion is a deserter who is called a murtad (apostate) who deserves the punishment of death.
(The writer is a well-known columnist, an author and a former member of the Rajya Sabha. The views expressed are personal.)
Source: The Pioneer
