Can Islam be violated by the likes of Chander Mohan without our consent, if not active participation? Asks Sultan Shahin

Urdu Section

05 Aug 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

Can Islam be violated by the likes of Chander Mohan without our consent, if not active participation? Asks Sultan Shahin

How Mullahs degrade Islam, explains Punjab's Shahi Imam   Mullah supporters of Chander Mohan alias Chand Mohammad have now gone underground   Now that Haryana's former deputy chief minister Chandra Mohan alias Chand Mohammad  has gone back to his Bishnoi religion after having himself purified of the "pollution" caused by his foray into Islam in order to cheat his wife and  allegedly rape his friend of five years courtesy "conversion" to Islam, the Mullahs who had supported him through all his twists and turns, justifying his every move – conversion, nikah, talaq and re-nikah – have now gone underground following his re-conversion and re-talaq to the hapless lady Fiza alias Anuradha, a former assistant attorney general of Haryana, the Indian state of which her lover was the deputy chief minister.    The Shahi Imam of Punjab, the state neighbouring Haryana, had opposed the conversion of such a man to Islam for the express purpose of cheating his wife – at that time it was not known that he allegedly also intended to just rape his friend and leave. Would these Mulahs now ask for his head, he asks, by clamping a fatwa of irtidad-e-Islam on him.   A furious Maulana Habibur Rahman Saani Ludhianwi called a press conference at Jama Masjid of Ludhiana yesterday to expose the greed and criminal action of the Mullahs, notably Maulvi Belal Bajralwi of Panipat, in "selling the dignity of Islamic Sharia at the hands of an imposter in whose case it was clear from the beginning that he had no intention of converting to Islam for spiritual reasons and he was merely trying to use Islam to cheat his wife and Indian law." According to Maulana Ludhianawi, these Mullahs or, as he put it with contempt, kath-Mullahs, are criminals of Islamic Sharia as well as Indian law, as they have aided and abetted a criminal act.   However, Muslims must realise that the problem is larger than this. It is embedded in our mindset of rejoicing at every conversion to Islam, no matter how farcical, under whatever pretext. What I find most inexplicable, however, is that while we celebrate every conversion we also harbour a desire to kill – no less - millions of those who are already Muslim, even if they interpret some teachings of the Quran somewhat differently and so belong to a different sect or school of thought.    I wonder if the Chandra Mohan-Fiza episode will help us rethink our attitude towards conversions to Islam in general. After all, Chandra Mohan is not the first person in India to have exploited Islam for nefarious or other-than--spiritual purposes. How many of us have opposed the practice of forcing prospective spouses to convert to Islam just for the sake of getting married.  Could that possibly be a real conversion which should be for spiritual reasons alone? It is clear that it is not. But not only do we support these practices, many of us actually demand that this happen.    Introspection and reform of our own attitudes is clearly the answer to our problem, not taking Mr. Chandra Mohan to court for denigrating Islam as Maulana Ludhianawi suggests or slapping a fatwa of irtidaad on him and thereby asking for his head. Islamic Shariat is violated in such cases with our consent, if not active participation.   Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam   The following report in Urdu appeared on 4 August, 209 in the daily Ekhbaar-e-Mashriq, New Delhi URL: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1602