Indian Muslims striking out in progressive directions By Debashish Mukerji
It was not 36 per cent over the decade 1991-2001 as the initial figures relea-sed by census officials maintained, but 29.3 per cent. It has not risen from the 1981-1991 figure of 32.8 per cent as Muslim-baiters at first suggested, but actually fallen by 3.5 per cent. Indeed the rate of decline has been faster than that of the Hindu population (2.9 per cent). The Hindu growth rate fell from 22.8 per cent in 1981-1991 to 19.9 per cent in 1991-2001.
It is also true that the overall figure of 29.3 per cent conceals large regional variations: the Muslim growth rate in the developed southern and western states is lower than that in the backward northern states, at times even lower than the Hindu growth rate in the northern states. Even so, the Muslim growth rate still remains the highest among the various religious communities in the country. This reinforces the stereotype of Indian Muslim: averse to family planning, wedded to conservative social mores, unwilling to accept gender equality or adapt to the modern world.
Like all stereotypes, it contains a kernel of truth, but is also a distortion of reality. "Both Hindus and Muslims have had problems coming to terms with modernity," noted Akhtarul Wasi, dean of humanities and languages at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi. "But Muslims have some additional problems, which are peculiar to themselves." Why so? Because more than any other religion, Islam is a way of life, and pious Muslims forever worry that following any modern trend may amount to contravening some religious diktat.
"There are certain rules, clearly outlined in the Shariat, which we regard as God-made laws that cannot be changed," said Kasim Rasul Ilyas, convener of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB). "On these fundamentals we are no doubt rigid, hence people call us fundamentalists." But, as a few Muslims admitted, this rigidity sometimes extends to areas where it need not. The 19th century reform movements among Hindus sought to overcome social evils by reconciling tradition and modernity. In contrast, most reform movements among Muslims of the same period, like the Wahabi or the Tablighi, tried to eradicate unhealthy trends by stressing a return to the ideal society that prevailed in Arabia in the seventh and eighth centuries under the rule of the Prophet and the first four caliphs.
Even in the 21st century, the Muslim ulema [religious scholars] and institutions like the personal law board have refused to ban such practices as the triple talaq, modify the Muslim personal law in favour of women, or take a flexible view on such issues as interest on loans or consumption of meat that has not been consecrated (both are forbidden).
Yet this is only a partial truth. There have always been forward-looking Muslims who have tried to infuse modernist trends into society. The line stretches from Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who set up Aligarh Muslim University in the 19th century (to impart strictly secular education to Muslims), his contemporary Maulvi Mumtaz Ali Khan who advocated women's rights, to poet Mohammed Iqbal who pleaded for itjihad (creative interpretation of religious texts) in the 1920s to social worker Hameed Dalwai who opposed all forms of orthodoxy in the 1970s.
Itjihad is the key word. "Apart from those few fixed laws, there remains a vast area of human life where itjihad is absolutely necessary, where changing according to the times is perfectly legitimate," said Rasul Ilyas. "The Shariat is not an obstacle to progress." In fact, there are numerous examples of community action where Indian Muslims, while remaining strictly within the bounds of their religious texts, have struck out in progressive directions. Four such are detailed below.
Blue stockings
The Islamic establishment is often accused of discriminating against women. Even the working committee of the Muslim Personal Law Board has only one woman among its 42 members. That is what makes the all-woman panel of muftis at Jamiat ul Mominath, a madrasa (Islamic school) in Hyderabad, so remarkable. A mufti is one who has completed the highest level of religious education in Islam, and is deemed competent to deliver fatwas [judgments] on any matter of Islamic law. "It is the first such panel in the world," said Rizwana Zareen, one of the three members and the madrasa's principal.
Jamiat ul Mominath started in 1991 in a single room, provided rent-free by Ali's father-in-law, with just four students. Today, it has its own premises where 2,000 girls study in morning and evening shifts, and has four branches in other parts of Andhra Pradesh. Although a few other religious schools for girls have sprung up in Hyderabad since then, Jamiat ul Mominath is still the only one in the country which, since 2001, has been offering the mufti course to women.
Was there any opposition to the step? "Not in the least," said Mastan Ali. "The Prophet made it clear that in matters of taleem (education), there should be no discrimination between men and women. If Muslim women have lagged behind their men in this respect, the reasons are purely social, not religious." Ali claimed no religious head protested even when the all-female dar ul iftah (religious panel), comprising three students who had just completed their mufti course from his institute, was set up in September last year. "That is because there is a precedent in Islamic history," he noted. "Two of the Prophet's wives, Ayesha and Umm Saluma, were muftis themselves. But since then there have been no women muftis in the past 1,300 years." The panel, which sits for two hours each morning, receives around 100 questions a month, most of them relating to intimate female concerns: from menstruation, childbirth, birth control and marital discord to the wearing of high heels and coloured contact lenses.
The panel has been criticised for making no effort to extend the boundaries of women's rights within Islam. Even in conservative Muslim circles, for instance, its reply to a question posed by Ahmed Sharif, a Hyderabad businessman, in October last year, was not well received. The question: is a Muslim husband obliged to foot his wife's medical bills?
The answer: no, he is not.
A paralytic fear removed
When it began five years ago, the pulse polio programme proved a complete flop in the Rohilkhand region in Uttar Pradesh. Most of the predominantly Muslim villages refused to cooperate, its residents bolting their doors or even chasing away the health department teams which came to administer the polio vaccine drops. One village in Bareilly district, Banjaria Jagir, achieved national notoriety when seven fresh cases of polio were detected there in a single year.
The hostility was from a rumour that polio vaccine affected fertility, made the babies who took them impotent or barren in later life. "Our people thought the programme was a conspiracy to check Muslim population growth," said Maulana Shahabuddin Razvi, general secretary of the All India Jamat Raza-e-Mustafa, a social work organisation headquartered in Bareilly.
Bareilly, like Deoband in nearby Saharanpur, is the seat of one of the most important schools of Sunni Islamic thought in the world. Its traditions are less austere than those of Deoband, incorporating elements of Sufism, the worship of pirs and graves, but it is no less influential. Thus, the district administration turned to the Muslim clergy to allay the fears of the people.
FAQs answered
Collective Itjihad is the raison d'etre of the Islamic Fiqh Academy set up by scholar and former qazi, Mujahid Islam Kasim, in Delhi in 1988. "There are so many new issues emerging these days that we felt it was important to spell out the correct Islamic view on these," said its secretary, Amin Usmani. The academy holds periodic seminars on contemporary matters, which bring theologians and scientists, economists and sociologists together. The subjects covered have ranged from birth control and divorce to cloning and Internet banking.
On certain issues the seminars have only reiterated old positions: accepting or paying riba (interest), for instance, was strictly forbidden by a consensus reached at the second seminar in 1989, and Muslims were advised to donate whatever interest they earned from their savings in banks to charity. So, too, the seventh seminar agreed that the meat of animals slaughtered in modern abattoirs by machines was not halal, and thus should not be consumed by Muslims.
Yet progressive decisions have been reached as well. "Birth control is forbidden in Islam, but for the first time we provided an escape clause," pointed out Usmani. The seminar consensus declared that while permanent forms of birth control-vasectomy or tubectomy-would never be permitted, temporary kinds-the condom, the pill, etc.-could be allowed, if childbirth was likely to threaten the woman's life or health. The fifth seminar decreed that Muslims could take life insurance, even though interest accrues on the premium paid. Yet another seminar held the buying and selling of shares legitimate for Muslims.
"The most radical decision was the one on nasha talaq (talaq uttered by the husband while in a state of intoxication)," said Usmani. "Our seminar ruled it invalid, despite strong opposition from many delegates."
The academy has also made repeated efforts to take modern education to the madrasas: through visits of Muslim academics to deliver lectures on secular subjects; camps for madrasa students addressed by university professors; training programmes for the ulema in the physical, biological and social sciences.
No doubt none of these progressive movements has yet taken up the really contentious issues: modifying the Muslim personal law to ensure gender justice, abolishing triple talaq or polygamy. The Muslim Personal Law Board discussed the triple talaq at length at its last meeting in July, but failed to reach a consensus on abolishing it.
"The consensus was that the practice is condemnable, but not illegal by Islamic tenets," said Rasul Ilyas. A model nikahnama (marriage contract), however, has been drafted by the board, spelling out the precise procedures to be gone through if the husband wants a divorce: men signing it automatically relinquish their right to triple talaq.
Courtesy: The Week, India
(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2004/09/24/feat/1.asp)
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