Opinion Remember him right

If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed,Mohammed must go to the mountain” was the great man’s answer to his detractors demanding from him,as a condition for obedience,the miracle of summoning to his audience the mountain-hill on top of which he used to preach. The message was that instead of waiting for miracles to happen we must make concerted efforts to lead a happy and meaningful life. The Prophet in fact never claimed any supernatural powers and kept asserting “innama ana basharun” (verily I am a human being). But today he is seen as an embodiment of spirituality: those swearing by him and fighting for his honour,blissfully forgetting his teachings on character-building,excellence in education,human rights,gender justice and peaceful coexistence. Year after year Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi is celebrated with great fervour — powerful orators sermonising on his theology and poets eulogising his imaginary superhuman powers without caring least about how recklessly his temporal teachings are going to the dogs.

Deeply concerned about social degeneration,the Prophet ventured on the hazardous mission of reforming the society around him,known for its tribal infighting and brutality. Convinced that education was the first answer to all social evils,he began his mission by gracefully impressing upon his people that God wished them to learn the use of the pen and get educated. “A person reading is handsome in the eyes of God,” he said once,and declared on another occasion “the ink of the learner is holier than a martyr’s blood.” Certainly these were not injunctions for learning Islamic theology,else he would not have ordered non-Muslim prisoners of war to teach Muslim children in lieu of ransom,nor commanded “utlub-ul-ilma wa lau kana bis-Sin” (acquire knowledge even if you find it in China). Determined to leave no room for gender-based discrimination in any walk of life,he more often than not mentioned women along with men — “al-muminin wal-muminat” (believing men and believing women) — so that never in future could his people put in his mouth “men only” in respect of any of his general teachings.

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It is indeed a misfortune of modern Indian society that the Prophet’s followers here have mercilessly thrown into oblivion all his teachings on secular education and gender justice. The word “ilm” (learning),used in the Quran and the Prophet’s sayings in its most extensive sense,has been confined to religious education and theology. Thousands of Muslim boys end up learning religion and theology at the lower levels of madrasa education,and thousands of Muslim girls do not go beyond pre-primary education or even remain illiterate. The word ulema,the plural form of “alim” — which simply means “scholar” — is reserved for those who have studied nothing but religion and theology.

In respect of women’s status and rights we insist on remaining the most backward people on earth. The holy book had begun gradually reforming the pre-Islamic custom of polygamy by first subjecting it to a strict discipline and later saying that a total adherence to this discipline was not even possible,but we take pride in claiming that plurality of wives remains till this day an inseparable part of our religion. The Prophet had declared divorce to be “abghad-ul-mubahat indallah” (most detestable among permitted things in the sight of God),but we insist that our men are free to turn out their wives at whim by simply uttering the word “talaq.” Insisting that these and some other anti-women practices are “bad in our theology but good in law,” we keep warning that any legislative or judicial interference with this “sacrosanct law” would not be “tolerated.”

Unfortunately,but not unreasonably,some people look at the Prophet’s teachings in the mirror of our practices of the day. If we keep shouting from rooftops that our faith encourages temporal learning of all sorts and is exceptionally women-friendly,while our people keep behaving exactly the other way round,can we succeed in commanding the world to unreservedly admire our Prophet? His birth anniversary merits a sincere retrospection to answer this question.

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The writer is a senior professor of law and former chair of the National Minorities Commission