Noted Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan has urged the Hindus not to judge Islam by the conduct of a section of the Muslim community as many of their acts are ‘‘un-Islamic’’. He said that even their concept of jehad, either in Palestine or in Kashmir, did not carry the religious sanction.
He was speaking on ‘‘Islam in Our Changing World: Challenges and Resolution’’ at the Indian Institute of Management here on Thursday. The talk was organised by the Society for the Promotion of Rational Thinking.
The Maulana said Muslims in some places preferred jehad to peaceful effort and thus deviated from the basic policy of Prophet Muhammad: to take easier of the two options. ‘‘This is un-Islamic attitude and here lies the root of all problems they are facing as a community today,’’ he said.
One cannot become a Muslim automatically just by birth in a Muslim family, one has to learn and understand the basic spirit and tenets of Islam and put them in practice before claiming to be a Muslim, he said. Muslims and Islam are two distinct terms and the two cannot be confused or interchanged, he added.
He said the Muslims should see a potential friend in the enemy as there was no place for the concept of enmity in Islam.
The Maulana, who is known for his rational thinking and is also referred in some circles as ‘‘RSS Maulana’’, said the Muslims should ignore problems according to the Islamic spirit and avail themselves of the opportunity instead of fighting with problems. He admitted that Muslims had turned violent in the name of jehad which was against the Islamic spirit.
‘‘I will agree with you if you say Muslims are violent but I will say ‘no’ if you are to tell me that Islam is violent...you have to differentiate between Islam and the Muslims,’’ he said.
Khan said the exclusivist tendencies among the Muslims had caused great damage to their progress in the modern world. While the Prophet had appointed non-Muslim teachers to teach Muslim students in his times, the Muslim League created an atmosphere were Muslims would deal with only Muslims and ‘‘this made them backward educationally and intellectually and shrunk their horizon of thought which rendered them unable even to understand the spirit of Islam’’, he said.
Linking the post-Godhra events to Babri demolition and to aggression on the Somnath 1,000 years ago by Mahmood of Gazni, he reiterated his earlier statement that the Muslims were to blame for Godhra aftermath. ‘‘I am not an agent of the Muslims and I can say that they have themselves to blame for the Godhra,’’ he said.
‘‘What Gazni did was against Islam but not a single Muslim in the past 1,000 years rose to condemn the attack on Somnath...Babri was fallout of that (attack),’’ he said. In this context, he said that Pakistan naming its missiles as ‘‘Gazni’’ was an act of provocating India.
He declared that there are not 56 but 57 Muslim countries in the world and the best Muslim country was India which offered peace, tolerance and freedom. ‘‘See what happened to scientists Abdul Qadeer in Pakistan and what happened to his Indian counterpart A P J Abdul Kalam?’’ he asked.