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| November 2009 Issue |
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The Good Muslim
The ulemas should help remove prejudices about Islam
By Ghazala Wahab |
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My standard response whenever someone asks me if I am a good Muslim (I do get asked pretty often) is that I hope I am a good human being. I am not evasive, but the question is so loaded that I am unable to judge quickly what it means? Does it mean that I follow all the basic principals of my faith? If that be so, will it imply that I am not a liberal, progressive person? Maybe it is all in my mind, but I find the question extremely judgemental.
Though I could be overreacting, I have a reason for being wary. I discovered a few years ago, that several non-Muslims, especially those who claim to be well-read about Islamic matters, have a perception about what a good Muslim stands for. According to them, to be a good Muslim, truthful to the tenets of Islam, one has to cease being a good human being or a good citizen of any country; because Islam is a non-inclusive religion that makes extraordinary demands on its followers, making it impossible for them to either remain faithful to their country or retain essence of humaneness. Hence, it is no wonder that Muslims prefer to live in their ghettos and indulge in anti-national activities because they cannot be otherwise. The religion itself is such, see.
While the school of RSS is the most obvious proponent of this kind of thinking, number of notable authors who are not the card-holding members of the organisation, Arun Shourie, for instance, also has consistently written and espoused this idea. |
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To buttress their arguments they quote verses from the Quran and passages from the Hadith, and when they do so you cannot argue with them because they are right. Indeed, there are passages in the Hadith that suggest all of the above, sometimes even worse. I am no scholar of Islam, but what I understand is that like the Sword Verses which talk of Jihad, these are also in a context and do not really mean what they literally convey. |
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It is the job of the Islamic scholars and the clergy to not only put such misleading verses in context but also the entire Islamic history, where violent phases co-exist with periods of peace, growth and scientific and cultural development. Forget about the social importance of this, it will help average Muslims to not feel apologetic when confronted with: ‘Are you a good Muslim?’ Yet, today everyone is focussed on terrorism.
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[Full Column] |
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