A student of Bhopal’s Nirmala Convent Higher Secondary School, Mohammad Salim, had filed a petition before the Supreme Court for endorsing what he called his ‘‘constitutional right’’ to sport a beard in the school, in violation of the institution’s dress code. The apex court rejected his plea outright, with Justice Markandeya Katju observing thus: ‘‘We don’t want to have Talibans in the country. Tomorrow a girl student may come and say that she wants to wear a burqa, can we allow it?’’ Several Muslim organizations, including the influential Jamiat, have declared that they will petition the Supreme Court for a review of the division bench’s order. These organizations have described the court order as ‘‘shocking’’ and ‘‘unfortunate’’, implying that the apex court should have allowed Salim to sport a beard in his school violating its dress code and discipline merely because of the ‘call’ of his religion, that too in a secular country.
In an interesting and illuminating newspaper article, Javed Anand, general secretary of Muslims for Secular Democracy, has rightly harped on what constitutes real Islam and harangued the Muslim organizations espousing Salim’s case and deciding to file a review petition. He says: ‘‘...the review petition will not just protest at the Taliban remark but invoke a Muslim’s ‘constitutional right’ to live by his or her ‘Islamic duty’. The only catch is that the argument is bogus: the beard and the burqa are mandatory only under the Mullah’s Islam. Ironically, even the mullah will readily admit that there’s no provision for a clergy in Islam.’’ He says that had the self-appointed custodians of Islam honestly spread the simple messages of the Prophet in lieu of ‘‘peddling a bygone culture’’, Muslim teenagers like Salim would have concentrated on ‘‘sharpening their intellect’’ instead of ‘‘frittering’’ their and ‘‘the community’s time, money and emotion in search of shallow piety’’. No sensible Muslim would dispute Javed Anand’s advocacy of secular culture and the need to rescue Islam from fanaticism and medieval-age zealotry. It is high time that the orthodox among Indian Muslims realized that they are citizens of a secular democracy, not of an Islamic theocracy. But the tragedy is that assertions as Javed Anand’s even among liberal Indian Muslims are few and far between. THE SENTINEL
In an interesting and illuminating newspaper article, Javed Anand, general secretary of Muslims for Secular Democracy, has rightly harped on what constitutes real Islam and harangued the Muslim organizations espousing Salim’s case and deciding to file a review petition. He says: ‘‘...the review petition will not just protest at the Taliban remark but invoke a Muslim’s ‘constitutional right’ to live by his or her ‘Islamic duty’. The only catch is that the argument is bogus: the beard and the burqa are mandatory only under the Mullah’s Islam. Ironically, even the mullah will readily admit that there’s no provision for a clergy in Islam.’’ He says that had the self-appointed custodians of Islam honestly spread the simple messages of the Prophet in lieu of ‘‘peddling a bygone culture’’, Muslim teenagers like Salim would have concentrated on ‘‘sharpening their intellect’’ instead of ‘‘frittering’’ their and ‘‘the community’s time, money and emotion in search of shallow piety’’. No sensible Muslim would dispute Javed Anand’s advocacy of secular culture and the need to rescue Islam from fanaticism and medieval-age zealotry. It is high time that the orthodox among Indian Muslims realized that they are citizens of a secular democracy, not of an Islamic theocracy. But the tragedy is that assertions as Javed Anand’s even among liberal Indian Muslims are few and far between. THE SENTINEL
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