CRITICAL SITUATIONS AND FUTURE COURSE OF ACTION FOR MUSLIMS

Critical situations and future course of action for Muslims

translated by: Shamsul Huda Qasmi

There are two incidents and these two recent incidents belong to Bihar, one is from Saharsa and the other is from Gaya district. How tragic and unfortunate these two incidents are that you can realise the seriousness and gravity of the situation. The first incident took place in Saharsa of Bihar with a religious scholar, Maulana Jaseemuddin Rahmani. He was attacked on Friday, June 12, at 9 AM. A mob surrounded him and accused him of spreading the Coronavirus disease. When a mob of 25-30 Hindu extremists gathered, he was attacked and badly beaten. He is now critically injured and being treated in a hospital. As soon as the news went viral on social media, I contacted the victims to find out the truth. The detail of the tragic tragedy was reported as follows: "The majority in our village are non-Muslims; only four or five houses belong to Muslims. From time to time, these people are often looking for an excuse to quarrel, which is also reported to the SP here. Sometimes we are blocked to go and sometimes so and so. The latest incident is that there was a fight among the children; the children of our family and non-Muslims. We settled the matter amicably, but Maulana Jaseem Sahib, who teaches and leads prayers in another village at some distance from the village, was not at home when the children fought. He did not even know what was going on in the house. He was coming home from his mosque. "People surrounded him on the way and attacked him, leaving him critically injured. He is still in critical condition and undergoing treatment." This is the reality of the incident that was reported to me over the phone by the victims. Can you imagine the seriousness of this? Yes? The children's fight will reach the adults and then there will be a wave of revenge. What will be the result, you know? They also told me that their FIR is not being registered at the police station. On the contrary, we are being threatened that further action will be taken. This is the incident of Saharsa District.

The second incident

Another incident took place in Gaya district of Bihar on Thursday, June 11, 2020, in the village of Gharianwan, Bhariti police station Wazirganj. In the evening, cruel and oppressive people of the Yadav community attacked a poor and weak family of Muslim with knife. These beasts did not spare even the weak women and children, beat them with great cruelty. As a result Mumtaz Ansari has been severely wounded and his condition is critical. They fractured the heads of Muhammad Dilshad and Muhammad Shamshad and broke their hands. No one is safe in the house. What is the cause of this incident? When we investigated it, we found out that a week ago there was a dispute between the two sides regarding the pathway to the side of the house. The Muslims lodged a complaint too with the police. Due to the small number of Muslim families in the village, the Yadav community took advantage of the weakness and attacked them, saying, "Why did you go to the police station? The whole family is bleeding; the video of incident is circulating on social media.

I have mentioned these two recent incidents here. You can deduce from this incident how much hatred and prejudice has been mixed in the atmosphere. Do you think that this hatred and enmity will end easily but in the coming days the situation will be even more critical and serious. Now the question is what do we do in such an environment? What should Muslims do now?

We are not to become silent spectators:

Now, instead of being a silent spectator we have to determine our own priorities. We have to formulate a strategy, be vigilant and avoid negligence; otherwise we have to wait for the saying come out true "if today is your turn, then tomorrow is ours". It is fact that those who wanted to migrate to Pakistan, they did it, and now we have to live in our own country under any circumstances. But for that we have to set our own priorities, wake up from our long slumber and open our eyes, pay attention to the seriousness of the country and the poisonous environment, only then we can be able to survive in this country, or else we will be slain out and chopped off like carrot and reddish, and no one will be able to save us and no one will listen to our voice. I have no hesitation in saying that Muslims have been showing great negligence and carelessness since independence which is why we have to face these days. There is no doubt that we have neither carried out the important tasks nor we have fulfilled our responsibilities that we should have done after the independence. I think there are some important points that we need to include in our mission. Here are a few things.

1)         There is a great need for strong unity in our societies, and those who want to create disarray, they must be socially boycotted.

2)         Human welfare services need to be carried out; Islam has declared the service of creature as an important act of worship, so we should pay our attention to it. There is urgent need of establishing our schools and colleges along with hospitals equipped with modern facilities. There is no shortage of people among Muslims who have been blessed by Allah Almighty, and they alone can run many hospitals in the best possible manner, if it is not possible by a single person alone, then some people should work together. Such news keep coming from different parts of the country that someone was not admitted to the hospital because he was a Muslim or he was treated with prejudice for being Muslim.

3)         The need to invite non-Muslims towards Islam: There is an urgent need to spread the message of Islam among non-Muslims so that those who have become our enemies can be made friends and the situation can be changed. There is a need to pay special attention to this and to invest a lot in it.

4)         The media has played a very important role in making the current anti-Muslim situation in the country. The media house of Muslims is very important to bridge this gap. Sadly, despite being such a large number of Muslims, we don’t have even a national level newspaper. We also need to think about how the dream of a media house can come true and how to put it into practice? Without it the situation cannot be made favorable.

5)         Unless we have our own media house, let us at least make social media our weapon and use it for our mission. Instead, the majority of us today are using social media negatively and many Muslims do not realize the importance of social media. Although, this is a great blessing from Allah Almighty if we start using it properly and positively, the need of media houses can be fulfilled to a great extent. There is a dire need to build excellent schools at every Taluka and district level in the field of education. The standard of education should be that of the best international level. The hard work should be done on selected students. There should be a coaching and guidance centers and an IPSC UPSC training centers in every state where talented students should be trained. There should be a hostel in every city in which the Muslim students should be trained religiously and morally. There should be a united platform of wealthy Muslims for this noble cause. And a panel of concerned Ulema and education experts must be formed to carry out such activities and achieve such noble goals. If the above is done, we hope that the situation will change rapidly.

These few words just came to my mind with the hope that the nation's compassionate gentlemen and intellectuals will ponder over it and my voice will not prove to be a voice of a desert. Yet, there are many Muslims who have been blessed with much wealth by Allah Almighty. They readily donate large sum of money to the government's Charity funds. But when you ask them as what memorial they have left for the community that may benefit the community and nation, it is quite likely that they may not be able to give satisfactory answer.

However, there are many people who have been recorded in history books whose services and deeds are certainly enviable. There is a city of Jalandhar in Punjab. There is a university called "Lovely". This university is spread over a very large area. It was established by a person who once sold Paani Puri and Chaant on the stall. He worked hard and progressed and now the biggest showrooms in the city, ranging from sweets to motor parts, belong to him and all in the name of "Lovely". He thought of his community. As a human duty, he invested his capital in building the future of his community and now thousands of Children are being educated in it.

We also have a long list of Muslim capitalists and wealthy people. Many of them have involved themselves in medicine and pharmaceutical sectors. But to this day, how many of them have built universities. Not to speak of IIT colleges and other notable educational institutes, how many people and organizations built multi-specialty hospitals? Doesn't the community need it?

Hakeem Abdul Hameed Sahib is one of those who used the Hamdard's endowment to build a valuable institution like Jamia Hamdard and Majidiya Hospital. Similarly Salar-e-Millat, Salahuddin Owaisi, set up Owaisi Hospital in the city, Hyderabad. There are some other hospitals and educational institutes in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kerala and other cities in South India. But are they enough?

Today, when reports come in newspapers and social media that Muslim patients have been sent back from hospitals and not allowed to be treated because they were Muslims, our hearts break in utter shock. Today in the country Hospitals like Apollo, Yashoda, Max Fortis, etc.; all belong to non-Muslims. After all, Muslims also have capitals. Why don't Muslims spend their capitals on these things?

However, this is a very crucial time and we have to determine our own priorities, towards which a poet has pointed out that:

It is better to keep pace with time

Whom will you tell the story of your grief?