Wahhabi Extremism Denounced by Indian Sunni Clerics Indian Muslims Oppose Wahhabi Extremism: A NewAgeIslam TV Report-8 From: NewAgeIslamTV

Oct 21, 2011

For the first time in India a Muslim Mahapanchayat passed a resolution condemnin g growing Wahhabi extremism. We have never accepted Wahhabi fatwas, and will never accept them in future too: Maulana Ashraf Kachochhvi

By C. Uday Bhaskar October 17, 2011 The ideology of Islamic radicalism and its justification of related terrorism as jihad, which is predicated on a distorted interpretation of the tenets of Islam, received a major jolt from Indian Sunni clerics on Sunday in Moradabad, a small town in Uttar Pradesh. Maulana Syed Mohammad Ashraf Kachochavi, general secretary of the All India Ulem a and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB) which represents the majority of Sunni Muslims in I ndia, denounced the hardline Wahhabi interpretation of Islam espoused by Saudi A rabia. Addressing his constituency of over 100,000 people at a maha-panchayat (great cong regation), the Maulana exhorted his flock to reject such distortion of the norma tive principles of Islam. Bemoaning the fact that a small group of Muslims had given a bad name to their g reat religion, he added: The time has come for us to come out and claim our right s. Let us take a pledge that we will never support Wahhabi extremism -- not toda y, not tomorrow. Since the tragedy of 9/11 that felled the Twin Towers and the more recent terror attack on Mumbai in November 2008, there has been considerable ferment in the I ndian Muslim populace (estimated to be 138 million as per the 2001 census data) about the distorted ideology which has been justifying and nurturing such extrem ism. As is often the case, the larger majority of Muslims the world over are law-abid ing citizens who do not support the malignancy of Islamic extremism -- but have either been silent or invisible. Thus, the unambiguous stand taken by the AIUMB which represents almost 80 percen t of Indias Sunni Muslims -- who in turn are the majority faction of Indian Musli ms (the Shia, Ismaili and Ahmadiyya amongst others are estimated to be less than 30 million in all) -- is a very significant development in the ongoing contesta tion about the interpretation and practice of Islam. The stand taken by AIUMB President Hazrat Syed Muhammad Ashraf Ashrafi and his c olleagues was long overdue, for many Indian Muslims had warned of the dangers be ing posed by the spread of virulent Wahhabi ideology in Indian madrasas, which r eceived generous funding from Saudi sources. The control of madrasas and what th ey teach and propagate to impressionable minds has been a contentious issue in I

ndia for decades. It is regrettable that the state in India has chosen to turn a blind eye to this malignant trend for short-term electoral considerations. Hence, many poisonous and anti-national ideologies and discourses have been swirling amongst the India n Muslim constituency. Calling for the creation of a Central Madrasa Board that would monitor these rel igious prep schools, Maulana Kachochavi asserted: Right now, the madrasas are und er the control of Wahhabi-inspired organisations which run on Saudi money. The i deology they teach and spread is hardline Wahhabism. The proposed Board, he added , would keep a watch on the flow of Saudi money into madrasa education in India. India has been a model of relative tolerance, as far as the practice of Islam is concerned, for over a millennium and is currently home to as many as 150 millio n Indian Muslims. The factional diversity in India which has a mix of Sunni, Shi a and other smaller sects is the envy of many Muslim nations and the syncretic c ulture that has evolved for centuries has withstood many challenges including th e partition of 1947 and the more recent 2002 pogrom in Gujarat. However, in recent years, the hardline Islamic factions that have an Arab-Wahhab i texture to them have been gaining ground in India and many subtle changes have been evidenced. For instance, the common greeting in the sub-continent, salam-al ikum has gradually transmuted into Khuda-hafiz and has now become Allah-hafiz. The wo rd Khuda has been dropped since it is of Persian origin and is also seen to be pre ferred by the Shia populace. Predictably, women have become the target of such imposed conformity and the new advocacy of groups like the Tablighi is that a purdah (veil) to cover the face is not enough -- young Muslim girls are now advised (firmly) -- to keep a purdah on their voices. To be barely seen and remain submissively within the family fold, in a silent mode, is the prevailing Wahhabi-derived prescription for the young M uslim girl -- a template that the Taliban and their adherents in Afghanistan and Pakistan ardently support. The post 9/11 global challenge to quarantine and shrink terror predicated on a d istortion of Islam cannot be won by military means alone. The greater war is tha t of resisting toxic interpretations of the Quran and insidious narratives that serve pernicious political ends. The Maulanas in Moradabad have picked up the distortion of Islam and the hijacking by the mended and calls for many debates within the being allowed to voice their opinions about interpretation of Islam. gauntlet. This denunciation of the Wahabi school is to be globally com Muslim fold -- with women and girls what constitutes a gender equitable

The White House with its empathetic incumbent should be apprised about the tecto nic potential of Moradabad in the war against terror. URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamIslamAndSectarianism_1.aspx?ArticleID =5738

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COMMENTS 10/22/2011 2:59:30 AM Raihan Nezami The western scholars as well as the media are equally provocative and irresponsi

ble in their interpretation of Islamic tenets and and idiology making it worst w hen they intend to hurt the sentiments of other people. Islam teaches us to beli eve in the verse ", Quran firmly declares, " To you be your religion, a ion" ( Surah Al-Kafirun, Verse-6). Some people don t believe in the practice of one s own faith, especially they have been targetting Islam and its followers which should be denounced strongly and opposed intellectually. The people who ha ve taken this assingment should be appreciated. The Sunni-Wahabi conflict of pra ctice has been a permanent apple of discord among the Islamic scholars, which wi ll remain alive as it has been due to the different Islamic schools of thought a nd different Masaliks. The people follow the four different Imams who have some differences in their teaching of practice of Islamic tenets, but all of them are correct and true in practice of Islamic idiology and are the pillars of Islam. Anyway the present lot of Aemmas and Ulemmas should have patience and restrain f rom such controversies which provide a chance to un-Islamic forces to putforth t heir atrocious remarks and wrong interpretation of Islam.

10/21/2011 11:38:36 PM mohammed Yunus Mr. Raihan Nizami. What made you say the writer quotes and believes in it Joh n Esposito made the remarks to demonstrate what others thought of Islam. His (Jo hn Esposito ) book denounces these remarks. This writer merely quoted from his ( John Esposito s) book to indicate that Mr. Uday had made a very sympathetic rema rk - given the hostile flavor of non-Muslim political rhtorics and greenhorn sch olarship. Hope things are now fully clarified.

10/21/2011 10:57:50 PM Raihan Nezami Mr. Bhaskar is swinging in his article between rights and wrong - when he says " the common greeting in the sub-continent, salam-alikum has gradually transmuted in to Khuda-Hafiz and has now become Allah-Hafiz", it seems that he is totally unaware of Islamic practice. Assalam Alaikum s literal meaning in Arabic is May Allah s r ehmat be upon you" and Khuda Hafiz means "May Allah save you" The former is used for greeting and the latter is used for departing. How can a Muslim, even an il literate, exchange the phrases in Islamic practice? As far as the exchange of "A llah hafiz and Khuda hafiz" is concerned, both have the same intention, The phra se Khuda hafiz is of Persian origin and means, "May Allah save you" and in the s ame contest, Allah hafiz is used replacing Khuda with Allah. So the phrase "Alla h hafiz becomes a combination of Arabic "Allah" and Persian "hafiz" So, what is wrong in practice if two languages are mixed? This is the age of derivatives. En glish has assimilated and derived thousands of foreign words that is how it got so enriched.

As far as the comment of Md.Yunus is concerned, I am absolutely sure that a true Muslim would not believe in such derogatory remarks, Franklin Graham, who gave t he invocation at George W. Bushs first inauguration, declared: The God of Islam is not the same God . [Islam] is a very evil and wicked religion. Pat Robertson, a l ong time leader of the Religious Right, was equally provocative. This man Muhamma d was an absolute wide eyed fanatic a robber a brigand . a killer. Most provocativel , Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority and the President of Liberty University called the Prophet Muhammad a terrorist on national prime TV. This is no t a war between Arabs and Jews. Its between God and the devil[p.165]. The writer ha s quoted and seems to believe in it. Such remarks should be denounced which have been made with an intention to defame Islam and its followers. Our Prophet Hazr at Muhammad (PBUH) was the only perfect human being sent upon this earth as an e pitome of unique human qualities to show that such a purified and just life is a

lso possible. That is history. But a person, who possesses western anti-Islamic views, cannot even see the historical facts.

10/21/2011 1:22:45 PM Ghulam Mohiyuddin I agree with Dr. Haque s criticism of Sufi clerics. We do not want Islam to be a mazaar based religion. But I disagree with Dr. Haque when he extols Shaykh Muha mmad Wahhaab s rigid and puritanical depiction of Islam. We do not have to spend our lives obsessed by and fearful of committing shirk. If a young mother prays at a mazaar for the recovery of her sick child, she will not be punished by the One who is repeatedly described in the Quran as being compassionate and merciful . Sensible Muslims can find a balance.

10/21/2011 11:55:17 AM sadaf Dr. M. AHaque, it is your turn now. You have already lost the plot. You are here as Wahhabi. And you are opposing people who do not accept terrorism as part of Islam. Writing a 59letter name for the guy who interpreted Islam in such a narrow manne r doesnt make him taller than he was, nor it makes him any authority on Islam. Th e shirk you people keep mouthing is nothing more than you and your kinds obsessio n with the word shirk is. You present Islam as a way of life which is shirk centric. A similar thing you cannot say about me. I dont have attachments to the dead, or tree or rock or anything, and with rock I got reminded of the rock that you cir cumambulate 7 times in Mecca. I too, in the very words of Hazrat Umar, just see that rock as something that Prophet kissed. Thats it. Do I need to make any attac hment with that rock as you guys do? The prophet was not born for the sole purpo se of kissing that rock. Do you understand? You people have made a mountain of that rock. And you people have made the 59 le ttered name as an icon, too big to not come under any scrutiny. Remember the guy died long back, as he too was a mere mortal and cannot be taken more seriously than necessary. There have been many interpreters and he at best deserves equal honour amongst them. Not more. Dont make Sachin Tendulkar of him. Not a single place in your mail, you have tried to balance your leaning for Waha bbism. Are you not content with being just a Muslim? Else how do you equate reje ction of Wahabbism as rejection of Quran? Has your sheikh written something that is equivalent to Quran, Nauzobilah? His crap can be torn and thrown, if it pro duces such a strong division as he has already done with those writings among th e followers of Quran. The stone that you make rounds and rounds can be grounded and made as dust to be scattered from sky, if it creates the division among those who are supposed to have damn cared for stones, and trees. As for your panchayati to judge who can be called a Muslim, do you think you a re here father of Allah, Nauzobilah, to settle that matter in case you do not wa nt to have Allah his rights of deciding about the imaan of any of His creation? As for your repulsion for Mazar and nazranas, that is understandable. Even I too dont give a damn to these. But that doesnt mean that I will tolerate any kind of nonsense of Wahabbism. Their obsession with anti-mazar, anti-nazrana, makes it c

lear that they are more concerned with these practices than understanding that n ot just these dead guys buried can do nothing, even Allah too do not need our Sa jda to do anything. He is free to do whatever He likes. Is it there that He is b ound in anyway, even by His promises? Can Allah have some limit? I am sure, not, that would be absurd. Similarly all the theory that Islam means anti-shirkism is just as absurd. Islam is Islam. It has a certain way of life, a certain belief. Thats it. But that doe snt lean eccentrically for being particular for not giving reverence to just abou t anything. If not, then why in Islam, there is still scope of circling around stone, that too when we all know, it is nothing of reverence when we reserve tha t for Allah who is not a thing, not just anything? Why all the rituals? Why all th e Sunnah when all that we have to-do is to be muttaqee. It is because Islam has done peace with human s need for something to display hi s affection and reverence for Allah and people and things that reminds him of Hi m. Obviously, Islam means peace. But what do you understand this peace stands fo r? For absence of violence only? If you understand peace as that way, then thats your limitation. Peace means one has no issue for things that are non-issue. No w go back to recall, what was the issue that lead to the revelation of Quran. I hope you know when you vouch so much for it. If not, then may be some other day Ill put it here for you. Now go. Peace. And yes, for your kind information, the custodian of two Holy places that we hav e witnessed in recent times is not necessarily the best of all men available on the earth to-do the job, nor he has been elected by all the people or majority o f them in free and fair election, nor he is expected to be not unaware of the pr ohibitions under Islam, which includes to not have more than 4 wives. Justgo and check how many he has and you will know what a great sex racket this custodian is running perhaps exclusively for himself. I do expect to be evaluated by you a s so narrow minded for not giving this particular Islamic concession for our Holy Guardian. And yes, you can send your Freedom First for me to see what do you read and then what you make out of it.