Rabid e-mail takes on liberal Muslim scholars

They have also been attacked in the email as being Ulema-o-Kuffr or ‘Scholars of the Non-believers’, for not being “convinced” that Islam sanctions the use of jihad as a legitimate weapon of the mujahideen and for continuing to “oppose the mujahideen”.

The head of the Jamat-e-Islami, Jalaluddin Umri, also named in the email, reacted sharply to news of the remarks in the email and said; “Who is sending this out? We have never heard of these organisations before. Do they have an address or any locus? We need to get to the heart of who is causing the blasts and punish them. These terror attacks are leading to the loss of so many lives. We do not know if Muslims or non-Muslims are committing them. All I can say is that it is a malicious campaign that Islam sanctions violence and a big lie. The government and security agencies need to find out who the killers are, and spare innocents the blame.”

Of those named in the email, Mehmood and Arshad Madani head two factions of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Jalaluddin Umri is the chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Zakir Naik is a popular TV evangelist. All are mainstream Muslim scholars and preachers, who have consistently taken a public stand against terror.

This email has come at a time when several of the above leaders (in particular, those associated with the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind) are planning to take out a mass march in Delhi on May 31 to endorse the Darul Uloom anti-terror resolution.

Mahmood Madani, a Rajya Sabha MP, apart from being the general secretary of the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind said, “There is no change in our plans to bring thousand of common people here to oppose terror. Our organisation fought the terror of the British and if these people are threatening us now, we will fight them.” Sources within the Jamiat Ulema e Hindi say they are inspired by the notion of the ‘Million March’ in the US, where, in 1995, thousands of African Americans took to the streets in a big march.

The objective of the peace march, say the Ulema, is to underline that there is no support or sanction for terror among Muslims or Islamic scriptures and that Indian Muslims do not support acts of terror being executed within India over the past few years.

Khalid Firangi, another senior Muslim religious scholar based in Lucknow who has been taking strident positions against terror, said; “Because initially the silence of the Ulema on terror was misunderstood as endorsement, we have come out and said things repeatedly against those who use terror to further their political means. There is not a word or a para in the Quran or the Prophet’s practice that sanctions the use of violence against innocents. It is completely wrong and un-Islamic, and I stand by that.”

In recent months, the Ulema have been very vocal about the need to secure what they call “justice” for perpetrators of communal violence against Muslims wherever the guilty can be established and are keen to ensure that innocent Muslims are not picked up in the name of questioning or suspicion because of their faith. But the Ulema are equally keen to establish that the average Muslim has nothing to do with the sophisticated terror attacks in cities, a phenomenon on the rise in recent months.