Hefazat-e-Islam’s Threat of Civil War in Bangladesh: Political Islam Is On the March, But Where Is The Moderate Islamic Narrative?
Based on the Author's Contribution as a Panellist in the Release of Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Frances Harrison’s Report "Political Islam and the Elections in Bangladesh" Released At Senate Hall, University Of London, On 30 September, 2013
By Sultan Shahin, Editor, New Age Islam
5 November 2013
According to news reports in Bangladesh press radical Islamist group Hefazat-e Islam has warned the country of a civil war if the government goes ahead with its plan to control Qaumi madrasas like state-funded Alia madrasas. “We won’t allow Qaumi madrasas to be controlled by the government. Lakhs of people will be killed if anyone tries to control Qaumi Madrasa,” Hefazat Ameer Shah Ahmed Shafi told a press conference in Chittagong on October 27. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina , however, said on November 4 that her government wants to finalise the Qaumi Madrasa Education Policy in consultation with all concerned, including Ulema-Mashaikh and Islamic scholars to make Qaumi Madrasa education more suited to the modern times.
Regardless of the merits of the case one gets a sense from Hefazat-e Islam threatening civil war in which "lakhs of people will be killed" as well as the events surrounding the "sudden" emergence of Hefazat that Political Islam is on the march in Bangladesh. A creeping radicalisation of the society is going on. Unimpeded. No organised effort is being made to check its growth in the only way it can be checked – with a counter-narrative of moderate, mainstream Islam. Bangladesh has the reputation of a moderate Islamic country which said NO to Two-Nation Theory and put its ethnic, linguistic identity above its religious one.
Spiritual, mystical side of Islam is not much in evidence, however, today, in Bangladesh as also in many other parts of the Muslim world.
One gets to read an occasional plea in the Bangla media: “O God, or O Politicians, don’t let Bangladesh become another Pakistan or Afghanistan.” But neither politicians nor the media are using Islam’s peaceful, moderate, spiritual side to counter the radical, supremacist, totalitarian, misogynist, narrative of political Islam that means to destabilise the region and the wider world.
Hefazat-e-Islam’s sudden rise in Bangladesh this year reminds one of the rise of Taliban in Afghanistan in 1994-95 and capture of Afghanistan by September 1996. Hefazat was able to bring out a hundred thousand madrasa students on the streets with its retrogressive agenda.
In both cases one heard the phrase "they emerged out of nowhere." But did they emerge out of nowhere? No, they didn’t. There were there. Hidden in plain sight. There are millions of children studying in madrasas all over the world. According to some reports 10 million in Bangladesh alone; even Frances Harrison’s report was able to gather sources that suggest four millions in 19,000 Qaumi madrasas, and, of course, there are Alia and Cadet madrasas, and many attached to the 2,75,000 mosques spread throughout the country. It’s more or less the same in other Muslim countries, including in secular, multicultural countries like India, where Muslims are a minority.
Not all these children go for higher studies to obtain degrees like Alim, Fazil and Kamil. But the number of those who do still runs into millions. And what do they learn there.
First we should know that there is a very small percentage of madrasas that are run by Sufi-minded Muslims attached to Sufi shrines. These madrasas are not well-funded, do not have well-paid teachers or good infrastructure or funds to support children.
Petrodollar funding and Saudi text books go to Wahhabi, Ahl-e-Hadeesi, Salafi, Deobandi, Jamaat-e-Islami madrasas. Jamaat madrasas, of course, prescribe Maulana Maudoodi’s books. All these madrasas teach books by Ibn-e-Taimiya, Mohammad Ibn-e-Abdul Wahhab and later Wahhabi ideologues. Even those non-Wahhabi madrasas which do not teach these books as text books make them available in their libraries and prescribe them as text for those students who take courses like Taqabul-e-Adyan (comparative study of Islamic sects).
The Holy Quran is a compilation of verses that came from time to time to guide the Prophet (pbuh) and his followers in different situations. So Shan-e-Nuzul, context of these verses, are given great importance in the understanding of Quran. But in most of this literature taught in madrasas now the holy Quran is treated as an uncreated book, a book which is just a copy of the original in Heaven (Lauh-e-Mahfooz). This means that each and every verse in the holy Quran is of universal significance. That Shan-e-Nuzul or context is of no significance.
This is what gives legitimacy to thoughts like the following that madrasa students are internalising.
Shaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab said: “Even if the Muslims abstain from Shirk (polytheism) and are Muwahhid (strict believer in oneness of God), their Faith cannot be perfect unless they have enmity and hatred in their action and speech against non-Muslims. (Majmua Al-Rasael Wal-Masael Al-Najdiah 4/291)
One of the Qur'anic verses that are said to be the origin of this understanding is the following: (V-28) Surah Al-Imran, “Let not the believers take the disbelievers as Auliya (supporters, helpers) instead of the believers, and whoever does this will never be helped by Allah in any way, except if you indeed fear a danger from them. And Allah warns you against Himself (His punishment), and to Allah is the final return.”
Also repeatedly cited is the following verse: “Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth among the people of the Scripture until they pay the Jiziyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. “(Surah At-Taubah, V-29).
Another message they get is from Maulana Abul Ala Maududi in Jihad fil Islam:
“Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam, regardless of the country or the nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its own ideology and programme, regardless of which nation assumes the role of the standard-bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. Islam requires the earth—not just a portion, but the whole planet.... because the entire mankind should benefit from the ideology and welfare programme [of Islam] ... Towards this end, Islam wishes to press into service all forces which can bring about a revolution and a composite term for the use of all these forces is ‘Jihad'. .... The objective of the Islamic ‘jihad’ is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of state rule.”
--- Maududi in Jihad fil Islam
This ideology is not only propagated through madrasa text books s but also through print and online journals. According to a BBC Urdu programme Sairbeen broadcast recently, the Islamist militant journals freely distributed in all cities of Pakistan are: “monthly Al-Shariat”, "Azaan", “Nawa-e-Afghan Jihad”, “Hateen”, “Murabetoon”, “Al-Qalam”, “Zarb-e-Momin”, “Al-Hilal”, “Sada-e-Mujahid”, “Jaish-e-Muhammad” and “Rah-e-Wafa.”
Then there are scores of television channels now available worldwide that are radicalising the Muslim pollution across the globe. No country can remain immune.
But this radicalism is not being challenged in a significant way. While the radical narrative is sharply defined and massively propagated from all available media, no alternative moderate narrative is available to common Muslims. Individuals have tried to refute radical ideology but they do not have governmental or other support available to propagate their ideas at any comparable level.
Unfortunately even Secular political parties in Muslim countries including in Bangladesh look for short term solutions, try to do a deal with one or the other radical organisations that can bring them votes and save them from the charge of being anti-Islam. They do not try to use Islamic ideology to counter the radicalism itself despite the availability of media and other resources.
A coherent alternative narrative agenda can very well be pieced together on the basis of Holy Quran itself and other Islamic literature.
Verses for Pluralism:
There are many verses in the Quran, for instance, that allow close interaction and peaceful co-existence with other religious communities.
“Allah does not forbid you to deal justly and kindly with those who fought not against you on account of religion nor drove you out of your homes. Verily, Allah loves those who deal with equity”. (Surah Al-Mumtahanah V-8)
“It is only as regards those who fought against you on account of religion, and have driven you out of your homes, and helped to drive you out, that Allah forbids you to befriend them. And whosoever will befriend them, then such are the Zalimun (wrong-doers – those who disobey Allah)”. (Surah Al-Mumtahanah V-9)
Muslims are allowed to marry in the families of Ahl-e-Kitab.
Muslims were not allowed to defend themselves with arms for the first 15 years of the 23 years that the Prophet (SAW) continued to guide them. It is significant that only after 15 years of Qur’anic revelations they were permitted to fight but only when they were left with no option. Even then they were told in the Quran to defend not only their own religious freedom but religious freedom per se, religious freedom of all religious communities.
“And had it not been that Allah checks one set of people with another, the monasteries and churches, the synagogues and the mosques, in which His praise is abundantly celebrated would have been utterly destroyed.” (Holy Quran 22:40).
Similarly there is a very well-defined moderate narrative available on the issue of Islam's treatment of women. Hefazat and other fundamentalist organisations in Bangladesh and elsewhere take a generally misogynist position even while paying lip service to a high status for women. This misogyny came in full view in the 6 April 2013 Hefazat-e-Islam rally where a woman reporter was badly physically attacked and another severely harassed, as mentioned in Harrison's report. I will quote from the account of a woman journalist Nadia Sharmeen of Ekushey Television (ETV) to bring out the ferocity of these madrasa students whom we think of as the epitome of civilised Islamic behaviour.
Sharmeen's entire statement is worth reading and very educative of what the arrival of forces like Hefazat mean to the world. I can only quote a few sentences here. She says, as quoted in the report:
"I am a crime reporter and I know that I might find myself in a difficult situation now and then. But this wasn't anything I had ever experienced. They were like a bunch of hyenas, or wild dogs, not human. I thought then, and I think now, that they wanted to kill me. They wanted to tear me apart, limb by limb. Why else would they start beating me from Paltan all the way to Bijoynagar? They hit every conceivable part of my body. I had to have two CT scans and ultrasonography to see if my abdomen and some other parts inside my body were all right, four X-rays of my left knee joint, left shoulder, neck. I am very lucky to be all right, not to have permanent damage, but doctors say they are still not sure, especially about my head injury.
"Obviously my family is very concerned. ... They didn't ask me to give up journalism because they know what it means to me. Why would I give it up because of some cowards? Who are they if not cowards? When 50 - 60 or more of them beat up one unarmed woman? Is that their way of showing respect to women? How can they claim to be protectors of Islam when they treat women this way? How can they protect Islam if they can't protect a woman journalist at their own event? I am a woman journalist. If I cannot stand there, if I cannot work side by side with men, then how can the Prime Minister of this country, or the opposition leader, be here? If they can't accept me, why are they negotiating with political leaders who are also women, in what they claim is a man's world. I was wearing decent clothes – everyone can see how I was dressed that day from the video footage. They were the ones who tried to tear my clothes off; in fact, they even succeeded in tearing some parts of it, they were so violent.
"To civil society, journalists and other concerned people, I want to say one thing: how are you sure that the same thing that happened to me today won't happen to you as well? I used to work with victims of violence; I never thought that something like this would happen to me. But it did. The same might happen to you too. If you want to live in this country and remain alive, then you have to do something about the changes that are going on. You have to resist these types of violence because no one can be safe in such a situation." All in all, I want justice for what happened to me, and so should they. If they cannot protect women, how can they protect Islam and the rest of humankind?"
Of course, Islam doesn't mean to Hefazat-e-Islam or Jamaat-e-Islami the same thing as it does to mainstream moderate Muslims. But while Hefazat and other fundamentalists' narrative of Islam is on the march the moderate Islam is in retreat, nowhere to be seen, except on internet sites like New Age Islam and in some blogs or editorial articles. Bangladesh is the only Muslim country where we found, at least in Shahbagh movement of February 2013, a large group of Muslims, particularly youth, came together to campaign against the soft treatment by judiciary of Islamic fundamentalist war criminals of 1971 Liberation war.
The massive participation of the youth in the Shahbagh movement was of key interest for the future direction of the country, as also noticed by some participants. Wikipedia quotes a participant, Amiruddin Ahmed who remarked, “After coming here I have realised that the national flag is secure at the hands of our children". Members of the 1971 "Golden Generation" found fresh inspiration in Projônmo Chôttor.[89] Writer Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, noting the large youth participation, said, "I am here to offer my apology to you. I wrote in newspapers that the new generation only hits 'Like' on Facebook and writes on blogs, but does not take to the streets. You have proved me wrong and I thank you all for this".[90][91]
"Dhaka University Vice Chancellor Arefin Siddique said, "Today is a movement to make the country free from Razakars. The country needs to be freed from Razakars' hands. Capital punishment of the Razakars is a demand of the country’s 16 crore people".[92] Jahangirnagar University Vice-Chancellor M. Anwar Hossain said, “The people of Bangladesh have rejected the verdict. At Projonmo Chottor, we join our hands to make a clear statement, to give a call to all countrymen to unite and oust the anti-liberation forces from the soil”.[92]" - (From Wikipedia)
While the exceptional display of opposition to extremist and violent fundamentalism in the Shahbagh movement is welcome we don't find even such opposition much in evidence in other Islamic countries. And mere opposition is, of course, not going to be enough. It's not going to stem the tide of what has been termed Islamo-fascism sweeping the Islamic world. We must provide the world at large as much as the Islamic world with a convincing moderate Islamic narrative. As I said earlier, this is not much in evidence so far. We better think about it seriously.