12-23-2005, 03:13 AM
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...t&counter_img=4
Paving the way for Islamistan
It is time ulemas got rid of their obsolete ideas and accepted ijtehad which was permitted in early Islamic tradition, says Prafull Goradia
Some 46 organisations accompanied by 420 Muslim luminaries have reportedly presented a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and <b>urged that agricultural land in the possession of Muslims should be transferred from the law of the land to the Muslim Personal Law - rather like the rules of marriage and divorce.</b>
<b>If this ridiculous demand is met, the country would lose its sovereignty over lakhs of land parcels. These territories would become quasi-wakfs. According to Islamic theology, wakf properties belong to Allah the Merciful, which make every property a micro Islamistan.</b>
Article 43 of the Constitution declares that India is a secular state, which means that there should be a wall of separation between the state and religion. Moreover, one country should have one law, especially when the Constitution guarantees equality before the law to all its citizens. It was with this intention that Article 44 of the Constitution directed that India should have a common civil code (UCC).
Unfortunately, Jawaharlal Nehru did not have the courage to face up to Muslim pressure. He, therefore, transferred this article to the chapter of Directive Principles, instead of making it a fundamental right.
On the morrow of passing Hindu Code Bill, Nehru had said on the floor of parliament, "Well, I should like a civil code which applies to everybody but wisdom hinders. If he (the member) or anybody else brings forward a Civil Code Bill, it will have my extreme sympathy. But I confess I do not think that at the present moment the time is ripe in India for me to try to push it through. I want to prepare the ground for it."
UCC is also essential if justice is to be done to Muslim women, who continue to be treated as chattel. In the recent Imrana case, the victim was raped by her father-in-law; and thus her relationship with her husband overnight changed from that of a wife to that of a mother. That the father-in-law had committed a crime found little place in the discussion.
However revolting the experience of Imrana might be, it would seem even worse if the context of sharia is seen. According to Holy Quran by A Yousaf Ali, a woman requires four male witnesses to prove her complaint of having been raped. In case she fails to do so, she would be charged with being an adulteress to be stoned to death.
This view is supported by Chapter DCLXXX, 'Prescribed Punishment For An Adulterer And An Adulteress', of Sahih Muslim by Imam Muslim. In the 7th century Arabia, conditions might well have justified such rules. It is quite possible that the status of women was even worse and shariat might have improved the female lot. In similar vein, it is widely known that Prophet Muhammad destroyed 360 idols inside the Kaaba on his return from Medina. Such demolition might have been explicable in the 7th century, but for the Taliban to destroy the Bamiyan Buddha in the 21st century was surely an act of barbarism.
The lot of a Muslim woman is described at length by Professor Bernard Lewis in What Went Wrong? According to him, Islam classifies inferior people into three: Unbelievers or kafirs, slaves and women. In his words, the woman was obviously the worst placed of the three. The slave could be freed by his master; the unbeliever could at any time become a believer by his own choice. Only the woman was doomed forever.
This description is consistent with the supreme principle of the religion: That Allah is the only God and there is no other god. Since God is essential for the passage of man to jannat or heaven, it is necessary for him to be Muslim. Incidentally, the woman has no place in heaven. The only females in jannat are Houris who do not mensurate and their function is exclusively to provide pleasure to men (Sura iv, Ayat 56-78).
The wife was expected to give birth to as many children as possible. To ensure that she is obedient, it was best if she was not educated. The other advantage was that an uneducated mother would not realise the importance of studies for her children. The consequence would be that the next generation also would not question the ulema. Women are seldom allowed to pray in a masjid, nor hear the khutba or sermon customarily delivered on Fridays.
Islam and modernity are a contradiction in terms. In such a society, the woman had to be purdah nasheen (fully covered). Little wonder that sharia enjoins the penalty for a woman to be half that of a man and, in evidence, the testimony of two women to be equal to that of one man. If one goes by the number of wives permitted at a time, she is one fourth of a Muslim husband.
<b>The ulema realise the threat women pose to their tight grip over the ummah. Their ill treatment is the biggest faultline of Islam and this today is under attack. </b>For 14 centuries, the mullahs have guarded this faultline from breaching. Christianity did undergo reform, whereas Judaism did not change but it paid the price by shrinking.
Communism tried to hold firm but eventually it perished. Islam should accept ijtehad or independent reasoning, which was permitted in its early tradition. The 1400-year-old religion should catch up with time in India, as it has tried to do in West Asia.
Paving the way for Islamistan
It is time ulemas got rid of their obsolete ideas and accepted ijtehad which was permitted in early Islamic tradition, says Prafull Goradia
Some 46 organisations accompanied by 420 Muslim luminaries have reportedly presented a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and <b>urged that agricultural land in the possession of Muslims should be transferred from the law of the land to the Muslim Personal Law - rather like the rules of marriage and divorce.</b>
<b>If this ridiculous demand is met, the country would lose its sovereignty over lakhs of land parcels. These territories would become quasi-wakfs. According to Islamic theology, wakf properties belong to Allah the Merciful, which make every property a micro Islamistan.</b>
Article 43 of the Constitution declares that India is a secular state, which means that there should be a wall of separation between the state and religion. Moreover, one country should have one law, especially when the Constitution guarantees equality before the law to all its citizens. It was with this intention that Article 44 of the Constitution directed that India should have a common civil code (UCC).
Unfortunately, Jawaharlal Nehru did not have the courage to face up to Muslim pressure. He, therefore, transferred this article to the chapter of Directive Principles, instead of making it a fundamental right.
On the morrow of passing Hindu Code Bill, Nehru had said on the floor of parliament, "Well, I should like a civil code which applies to everybody but wisdom hinders. If he (the member) or anybody else brings forward a Civil Code Bill, it will have my extreme sympathy. But I confess I do not think that at the present moment the time is ripe in India for me to try to push it through. I want to prepare the ground for it."
UCC is also essential if justice is to be done to Muslim women, who continue to be treated as chattel. In the recent Imrana case, the victim was raped by her father-in-law; and thus her relationship with her husband overnight changed from that of a wife to that of a mother. That the father-in-law had committed a crime found little place in the discussion.
However revolting the experience of Imrana might be, it would seem even worse if the context of sharia is seen. According to Holy Quran by A Yousaf Ali, a woman requires four male witnesses to prove her complaint of having been raped. In case she fails to do so, she would be charged with being an adulteress to be stoned to death.
This view is supported by Chapter DCLXXX, 'Prescribed Punishment For An Adulterer And An Adulteress', of Sahih Muslim by Imam Muslim. In the 7th century Arabia, conditions might well have justified such rules. It is quite possible that the status of women was even worse and shariat might have improved the female lot. In similar vein, it is widely known that Prophet Muhammad destroyed 360 idols inside the Kaaba on his return from Medina. Such demolition might have been explicable in the 7th century, but for the Taliban to destroy the Bamiyan Buddha in the 21st century was surely an act of barbarism.
The lot of a Muslim woman is described at length by Professor Bernard Lewis in What Went Wrong? According to him, Islam classifies inferior people into three: Unbelievers or kafirs, slaves and women. In his words, the woman was obviously the worst placed of the three. The slave could be freed by his master; the unbeliever could at any time become a believer by his own choice. Only the woman was doomed forever.
This description is consistent with the supreme principle of the religion: That Allah is the only God and there is no other god. Since God is essential for the passage of man to jannat or heaven, it is necessary for him to be Muslim. Incidentally, the woman has no place in heaven. The only females in jannat are Houris who do not mensurate and their function is exclusively to provide pleasure to men (Sura iv, Ayat 56-78).
The wife was expected to give birth to as many children as possible. To ensure that she is obedient, it was best if she was not educated. The other advantage was that an uneducated mother would not realise the importance of studies for her children. The consequence would be that the next generation also would not question the ulema. Women are seldom allowed to pray in a masjid, nor hear the khutba or sermon customarily delivered on Fridays.
Islam and modernity are a contradiction in terms. In such a society, the woman had to be purdah nasheen (fully covered). Little wonder that sharia enjoins the penalty for a woman to be half that of a man and, in evidence, the testimony of two women to be equal to that of one man. If one goes by the number of wives permitted at a time, she is one fourth of a Muslim husband.
<b>The ulema realise the threat women pose to their tight grip over the ummah. Their ill treatment is the biggest faultline of Islam and this today is under attack. </b>For 14 centuries, the mullahs have guarded this faultline from breaching. Christianity did undergo reform, whereas Judaism did not change but it paid the price by shrinking.
Communism tried to hold firm but eventually it perished. Islam should accept ijtehad or independent reasoning, which was permitted in its early tradition. The 1400-year-old religion should catch up with time in India, as it has tried to do in West Asia.