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 Ulema,
Dr Zakir Naik and Common Muslims
Much debate has ensued recently
among the supporters and critics of Dr Zakir Naik from a variety
of angels. Without doubt Dr Naik is a well intentioned Muslim who
wishes to refute
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You may lionise him as an ardent
‘defender of the faith’ or detest him as a pugnacious demagogue,
but Zakir Naik is one person you just cannot be indifferent to.
Based in Mumbai, this doctor-turned-‘Islamic’
missionary-to-the-world-at-large presides over a vast media
empire, centred on his Peace TV channel that is avidly watched by
literally millions of viewers across the world. Naik’s forte lies
in his practised ability to readily denounce other religions and
to thereby, at least in the eyes of his awe-struck admirers, prove
the superiority of (his own brand of) Islam.
Most non-Muslims who have seen Naik blabber on television,
instinctively find him repulsive, or so I would hope and imagine.
But Naik’s share of critics is now rapidly expanding to include
not just non-Muslims and sensible, liberal, progressive-minded
Muslims who are disgusted with his obnoxious tactics and what they
regard as his warped and supremacist interpretation of their
faith, but, curiously enough, a growing number of influential
mullahs or ‘Islamic’ clerics as well. Their grouse against him,
apparent from their statements and writings, is not his
vituperative attacks on other faiths that so embarrasses Naik’s
liberal Muslim critics. Rather, it has almost everything to do
with the challenge that Naik poses to their claims of being the
sole arbiters of ‘Islamic authenticity’.
Last month, the Mumbai-based monthly Eastern Crescent carried a
cover story that summed up, fairly neatly, the arguments of a
growing number of mullahs against Naik. The magazine is one of its
kind, the mouthpiece of an influential section of Deobandi
mullahs. It is probably the only English language periodical that
is almost entirely mullah-run. Its editor, all its senior staff
and almost all its writers are madrassa-trained mullahs, all of
them graduates of the Darul Uloom, Deoband, the largest and
probably most influential madrassa in the world. Its founder and
chief patron, the Assamese millionaire and politician Badruddin
Ajmal Qasmi, is a graduate of the Deoband madrassa and a member of
its central governing council.
The cover story of the December 2010 issue of Eastern Crescent is
revealingly titled ‘How a Maulana Rejects Zakir Naik’s Glamour
World’. Penned by M Tauqeer Qasmi, it is a winding and rather
convoluted report that explains how and why the head of one wing
of the Deoband madrassa, ‘Maulana’ Salim Qasmi, vice president of
the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, was finally convinced by
his fellow mullahs at a meeting held recently in Mumbai to desist
from accepting Naik’s invitation to participate in a mega event
being organised by Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation. Around a
hundred mullahs were present at the meeting. In describing the
meeting, Tauqeer Qasmi highlighted various aspects of Naik and his
‘Islamic’ channel that have now won him the ire of a major section
of the Deobandi mullah community.
Naik’s trespassing into what they regard as their closely-guarded
exclusive zone of interpreting Islam, doing so on his own and
without their assistance, seems to have been a major sore-point
for the mullahs present at the meeting held in honour of the
visiting Deobandi head. Although, interestingly enough, the holy
Quran stridently denounces priesthood (and this would include
mullah-hood, too), the mullahs act virtually as priests, and
presume it to be their sole prerogative to interpret Islam. Their
authority and leadership, and the worldly pelf that goes with
these, are all inextricably linked to this untenable claim.
Naturally, then, they regard as nothing short of anathema, Naik
interpreting Islam on his own, without their sanction or approval.
Not surprisingly, Naik was repeatedly denounced at the meeting for
‘wrongly’ interpreting the holy Quran.
Naik’s brand of ‘Islam’ shares much in common with that of the
Saudi Wahhabis, who stress a very literalist understanding of the
holy Quran and the Hadith, the corpus of traditions containing
what are believed by many (though not all) Muslims as the sayings
and actions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Like many Wahhabis,
Naik does not appear to believe, so Tauqeer Qasmi alleges, in two
other sources of jurisprudence that most other Muslim groups
uphold: qiyas, or analogical reasoning, and ijma, or the
consensual opinion of Muslims on a particular issue. In contrast,
the Deobandis stress all four sources of jurisprudence. In their
view, ijma denotes the ‘consensus’ of the ulema or ‘Islamic’
clerics (of their particular sectarian persuasion) on a particular
issue. Their stress on ijma is central to the claims they make for
themselves as the sole authoritative interpreters of Islam. This
is because their interpretation of the concept translates into
enjoining on Muslims taqlid or blind conformity to their own
dictates, which they derive from the texts of the mullahs of the
past belonging to their own sectarian persuasion. Any
interpretation of any issue that goes against this supposed ijma
is quickly branded by the mullahs as ‘dangerous heresy’. In this
way, the concept of ijma is routinely deployed by them to stifle
dissent, impose a mindless conformity and shore up their
authority, thereby also bolstering their own vested worldly
interests.
Not surprisingly, therefore, Naik’s supposed refusal to abide by
ijma (as the mullahs understand it) was yet another ground for the
Deobandis present at the meeting to roundly denounce him. As
Tauqeer Qasmi bluntly put it, ‘Zakir Naik attempts to deny ijma
[…] and this is against the spirit of shariah’. He bitterly
castigated Naik for allegedly ‘mislead[ing] common youth by not
conforming to these traditional sources of the shariah.’
For the Deobandi mullahs, the issue of Naik’s refusal to abide by
the ijma of the mullahs, which they regarded as an affront to
their authority, was no harmless academic quibble. They viewed his
stance, so it seems, as virtually leading him out of the Sunni
Muslim fold, which, in their eyes, is the sole authentic version
of Islam. Thus, Tauqeer Qasmi contended, ‘Zakir Naik repeats that
he believes only in holy Quran and sahih (authentic) Hadith. All
Muslims from Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamah [ie Sunnis] believe and
consider the Quran, Sunnah [the practice of the Prophet], ijma and
qiyas as sources of Islamic shariah.’ The insinuation, therefore,
was that since Naik reportedly did not abide by ijma and qiyas, he
was not a Sunni Muslim at all. And, according to the Deobandi
mullahs, only Sunni Muslims (as they define the term, which is
deeply contested by rival groups that also claim the Sunni label)
are true followers of Islam.
Muslim sects have been battling each other for centuries, each
pompously insisting that they alone are true Muslims and that all
other Muslims (and the rest of humanity as well) are doomed to
everlasting torment in hell. In the current Deobandi offensive
against Naik, their sectarian differences are, not surprisingly,
routinely invoked. Naik’s critics accuse him of alleged links with
the hardliner neo-Wahhabi Ahl-e-Hadith sect, with which the
Deobandis have been engaged in fierce competition for decades,
each claiming to represent the sole ‘authentic’ Islam, roundly
denouncing the other as wholly ‘un-Islamic’. Tauqeer Qasmi accused
Naik of covertly working to promote an ‘undeclared mission’: to
‘force people’ to ‘convert to’ ghair muqallidiat, an offensive
term for the Ahl-e-Hadith derived from its refusal to abide by
taqlid or blind following of any of the four generally prevalent
schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence which the mullahs adhere to.
As ‘evidence’, he cited the instance of a Muslim employee of
Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation who was a Hanafi, the school of
jurisprudence to which the Deobandis advise rigid adherence.
This man, Taqueer Qasmi alleged, was
compelled by his employers to pray in the Ahl-e-Hadith manner. The
difference in the Hanafi and Ahl-e-Hadith manner of praying may
strike one as so trivial as to be completely unworthy of comment,
but since the mullahs thrive on such matters and use these to fan
endless sectarian conflict, it is unsurprising that Tauqeer Qasmi
regarded this employee being reportedly made to place his hands on
his chest (in the Ahl-e-Hadith fashion), instead of his navel (as
the Deobandi Hanafis do), while praying as a heinous crime, one
that was tantamount, in his view, to forcible conversion to the
Ahl-e-Hadith sect.
The literally thousands of madrassas that they control are the
basis of the authority of the mullahs, where would-be mullahs are
carefully schooled. Not surprisingly, therefore, the mullahs
carefully seek to protect the madrassas from even the most
well-meaning and sensible criticism. Tauqeer Qasmi lashed out at
Naik, accusing him of seeking to undermine the authority and
appeal of the madrassas, probably regarding this as yet another
impudent challenge by Naik to the mullahs and their authority. As
‘proof’ in this regard, he referred to a new method that Naik
claimed to have discovered to memorise the entire Quran in a mere
three months. He dismissed it as a complete hoax invented by Naik,
whom he accused of ‘do[ing] everything that may catch public
attention.’ He denounced Naik for blaming madrassas for having
proven unable to ‘do such an “easy work”’ and, on this basis, for
questioning their usefulness. One mullah present at the meeting,
Taqueer Qasmi approvingly wrote, went so far as to declare, citing
a ‘conspiracy theory’ that is routinely invoked in the speeches
and writings of the mullahs and their followers, that, ‘Dr Zakir
Naik has been doing exactly the same that the Christians and Jews
are failed (sic.) to do in India, that is alienating common
Muslims from madrassas and ulema [Muslim clerics]. He and his men
discourage people from visiting ulema for knowledge and sending
children to madrassas.’
Naik, the mullahs at the meeting admitted, had done ‘some good
work’ — which they equated with ‘successfully debating’ with
people of other faiths, this being their curious way of
understanding what serving God and the Islamic cause is all about.
However, they argued that Naik had outlived his ‘usefulness’, and
that his missionary (dawah) work ‘is now becoming part of his
past.’ They contended that Naik, presiding over a rapidly
expanding global ‘Islamic’ media empire, had ‘now become more of a
glamorous person, looking for petro-dollars to finance his mega
events’. One mullah even claimed that Naik was misusing zakat
money, sent by Muslims to be used for the poor and the needy,
which, so he said, Naik was diverting to fund his television
channel, cover advertising expenses and pamper speakers at his
mega events in the form of jaunts at five-star hotels, free air
tickets and gifts.
Bringing these serious charges against Naik, the mullahs prevailed
upon the visiting head of the Deoband madrassa to refuse to accept
Naik’s invitation. They claimed that Naik’s intentions in inviting
him were wholly sinister. ‘The reality behind [Naik’s] calling big
names and ulema like Maulana Salim Qasmi’, argued Tauqeer Qasmi,
‘is that complaints have been made to the Auqaf ministry of Saudi
Arabia that Zakir Naik is misusing their money and no authentic
alim [Islamic scholar] of India supports him. So, Dr Naik is
looking to bring renowned ulema to his fold to market his position
around the world.’ Salim Qasmi was also advised by his followers
that in inviting him, Naik was not at all interested in putting
across his views through his television channel. Rather, they
claimed, Naik wanted his presence only to use his face, as head of
an influential madrassa, so as to attract viewers and thereby
bolster his sagging popularity. If Salim Qasmi accepted Naik’s
invitation, they warned, it was likely that Naik would excise
portions of his speech that did not conform to his ‘deviant’
Ahl-e-Hadith brand of Islam.
Having carved for himself a ‘flourishing’ career as the world’s
largest ‘Islamic’ media Mogul essentially by debating non-Muslims
and mocking their faiths, Zakir Naik now has a new set of people
to debate with — the influential mullahs of Deoband. And, for
their part, the latter have now got yet another target to drum up
public support against.
Yoginder Sikand
frequently writes on Muslim issues.
This article first
appeared in Daily Times, Lahore.
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