Sunday, June 1, 2008

Fatwa chicanery: Not a Deoband first

Hoodwinking is an old art, and Islamic terrorism's apologists have time and again proven themselves quite adept at it.

Deoband's radical Islamic school passed a "fatwa," with caveats, "against terror."

Deoband first(?): A fatwa against terror

Apart from the ridiculous suggestions that there is no link between Koranic passages and the actions of those who consider themselves devout Muslims (a lifelong allah ka banda won't suddenly give up on allah's message, would he?) , of particular interest are these statements:

Islam rejects all kinds of unjust violence, breach of peace, bloodshed, murder and plunder and does not allow it in any form.

Killing of innocent people is not compatible with Islam. The biggest challenge faced by us today is terrorism (which) threatens to strike at the very root of the secular structure of our society besides causing irreparable loss
The reporter preempts the objections by "some calling it...falling short of unequivocal condemnation of terrorism" by putting much hope in the inchoate steps of Deoband. But this is self-defeating.

The caveats, qualifiers "unjust" and "innocent" leave much room for interpretation and plausible deniability.

The Deoband madarassa still refuses to give concrete examples of acts which it would consider to be of "terrorist" nature.

The first question to be asked is does the Deoband consider the attack on Parliament, train bombings in Mumbai, attacks on Hindu temples in Varanasi/Jaipur/Akshardham etc., to be acts of terrorism? Or was it "just" violence?

Secondly, does the Deoband consider all of the victims of bombings on Delhi markets in Diwali and the 9/11 twin-towers to be "innocent" or participants in acts of "state terrorism"? Was their killing an acts of "justified" violence.

Most of them were non-believers, kafirs with questionable "innocence" as far as the Deobandis are concerned.

The answers should clear up the cobwebs about Deoband's thinking.

This lack of clarity on its part means others will have to wait for clarifications from Deobandi mullahs, clerics to know whether they certify something as terrorism or not. Post-facto certifications are useless in saving lives anyway. The fatwa is thus rendered meaningless since it does not instruct clearly to those who are supposed to follow it or take cues from it: the devout Muslims that is.

As it is, the meaning of fatwa itself is not clear. At some times it is an instruction to the faithful, at others, it is merely an opinion.

By reading too much in these inane fatwas, all that the non-believers are left to do is to wring hands and shrug at the Deobandis insouciance.

Unless we choose to fight. The choice is ours.

1 comment:

Dirt Digger said...

Great expose socal. This sort of statement release is just for public consumption while in private Deoband trains the next generations of the Taliban. If you check out their website , you can read their thoughts. Like for example,
"The struggle waged by Muslims of Palestine, Chechnya and Sinkiang cannot be called 'terrorism'. That is a legitimate resistance against aggressors and oppressors for securing their just rights."