Peddling Hate: Prejudice Developing In Muslim Youths by Listening to Friday Sermons by ahl-e-Hadeesi Imams, Zakir Naik and his Like
By Aiman Reyaz, New Age Islam
November 30, 2013
Date- Friday 22nd; time- 12:30 p.m.; place- Darzi Tola Mosque (Patna, Bihar); topic- Muslim’s Duty i.e., Inviting people to righteousness and forbidding evil; speaker- a local Imam belonging to Ahle Hadees sect.
“Why has Allah made us? What is the purpose of a Muslim’s life? Is it to make money, or to enjoy the pleasures of this world, or to sing and dance like the Mushriks? No, my dear brothers this is not what we have been created for. Our duty is to guide people towards the ‘Siratal Mustakeem’ (straight path). Muslims are in a sad state of affairs because we are following the devil; just as these Mushriks- Hindus- take out processions with songs and high-pitched musical bands, we are also doing the same thing in Muharram and on our Prophet’s birthday”.
After the Friday congregational prayer I asked a few innocent questions from a few boys of my age, mostly sporting beard, though one was not:
‘How was today’s Khutba by the Imam Sb’?
‘Aaj To Maza Aagaya’ (Today I enjoyed a lot); ‘Imam Sb Ne To Garda Uda Diya’ (Imam Sb did a great job’, came the random replies
‘Why is that so?’ I asked
One of them said: “He is absolutely right, we Muslims are the best of Allah Subhan Wata’la’s creation and we should not ape non-Muslims”. ‘Hmmm’, I nodded and smiled
The other one said: “yes brother you are right, we should distance ourselves from these idol-worshippers, what can an idol do? They don’t have common sense. If it falls it will break. These idol-worshippers are such dummies...”
The one who did not sport beard, shocked me the most: “The Imam Sb is bang on target. If we follow the footsteps of these people then we will be counted among them. We don’t want to go to hell, these ‘Band Baaja’ which Hindus do and these Shias also do, where will these things take them to? Surely their destiny is hell and no one can save them. Other Imams are the servants of Nitish’s (Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar) government; they will quote weak Hadees to prove that music is allowed and that it is also not wrong to celebrate the Prophet’s birthday”.
‘Right, right’ I said.
‘Ok tell me what you all think about our Zakir Naik’ (It was necessary to use the word “our”, otherwise I would have been judged as an outsider!). This brings me to Dr Zakir Naik.
Date- so many; time- after 6 p.m.; place- Somaiya ground (Mumbai), Old Parade Ground(Abuja), New West High School (Chicaco), among others, topics- so many; speaker- Zakir Naik
“Let me first clarify that we Muslims, we do not consider the Bible to be the Word of God. The Bible may contain certain portions from God, it contains the word of the Prophets, the word of Historians, it also contains absurdities, obscene statements, which someone even pays me a thousand rupees now, I will not be able to read from the Bible, such obscene verses and obscene chapters, it also contains so many contradictions...”1
“‘Islam- product, 100% but marketing 0%; Christianity- product 0% but marketing 100%” 2
“The Bible has things written in it that no decent person will speak it, I can’t say it. You can’t say it in front of your mother. It has pornography, teaches how to rape and how to even gang-rape and .., well, I cannot say more”.3
“While debating with Dr William Campbell, I pointed out 38 errors in the Bible and he was not able to answer even one. Time was less; otherwise I would have pointed out more errors. Every religious book except the Glorious Quran contains errors. The Hindu Holy Book Yajurveda says that the world is flat, the Bible says that the world is flat”.3
There are many other quotes but I think these are sufficient to show his mentality. Although Dr Zakir Naik talks about “coming to common terms” but his real goal, which any psychologist or body language expert will confirm, is to show Islamic superiority. He says that he is for unity but his lectures have divisive tendencies. Hundreds of thousands of youths listen to his lectures and get inspiration from him. They all want to be like the next Zakir Naik, they want to be able to quote errors in the Bible and the Vedas at the drop of their hat.
Dr Naik says that he wants to debate with Dalai Lama and the Pope for a “better understanding of religion” (read: defeating them in debates and showing supremacy of Islam over Buddhism and Christianity).
So here we are again, I asked: ‘Ok tell me what do all think about our Zakir Naik’
“May Allah bless him and his family.”
“I love him. He is a gem, earlier I had thought what this thin young man knows about Islam but when my parents told me to watch his videos, then I was enchanted. He is Hafiz-e-Quran, Bible,Vedas, Gita, and he also knows Dhammapada.”
The third one without beard again shocked me: “This is a conspiracy of the Congress. They saw that thousands of non-Muslims accept Islam after listening to his lectures, so they came up with an idea to ban Peace TV. Now we cannot watch it, Muslims must unite to protest against this. You see, Aiman Bhai, there are so many ‘Bhakti’ channels of the Hindus and there are 3 Christian channels but there is only one Islamic channel, which is very bad. It is Zee Salam and they do not focus on Dawah”.
I was getting late for lunch, my mother would have scolded me for coming late, so I ended this discussion.
Now the point that I am trying to convey is that many youths have become complacent about their afterlife. They are quite sure that all they need to do to go to heaven is to bring people towards Islam by any means: be it distributing pamphlets or books or CDs that propagate the religion. Deep down a strong sense of prejudice is developing among these youths towards anyone who differ from their way of thinking. Prejudice means pre-judging someone i.e., reaching a judgement about someone before the evidence is in; and reaching the kind of judgement that can have damaging, or injurious, or pernicious effect. 4
So for these youths, a Sufi saint, a shrine visitor, a Pir, a Hindu, Christian etc are just one type of people and that type is negatively painted. These people, above mentioned types Muslims youths suggest, should be taught a lesson for doing ‘wrong’ things or according to them, ‘un-Islamic’ things. “Outgroup Homogeneity” is the psychological term for describing such things. In other words anyone who differs from the ideology of these youths are treated negatively because “they are all alike”. Then ‘language propaganda’ is used to dehumanise them so that our mind can feel satisfaction in discriminating them or maiming them or even killing them, because then our mind will give us the response that ‘we are doing a good job for our community’. If we hold such views, psychologists say, then we become mere “tools”, with “a job to do”, serving some higher purpose. 4
1. Was Christ Really Crucified?
2. Media And Islam War or Peace?
3. Kya Quran KO Samajh Kar Padhna Zaroori Hai?
4. Henry Gleitman, Chap. 12
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-ideology/peddling-hate-prejudice-developing-muslim/d/34656