NIKHAB-OR NO-NIKAB(VEIL)

Sheikh Tantavi, the chief rector of Al Azhar, Cairo, is known in the Arab world
for eccentric comments and OFF the track remarks on issues of the Shariah. In the past also he has made several observations similar to the one made on the wearing of the veil.
Main stream ULEMAS ignore his remarks and FATAWAs. Besides, as usual every foreign news agency has played up this incident. Saudi scholars( those not in the govt pay or influence have avoided any comment. The reason, they say," any comment will give more importance
and attention to Tantavi.
Tantavi the next day made a clarification in the Egyptian Press and TV that he never ordered the girl to remove her veil. That same programme a caller CAME ON LINE AND said he was present when the Shiekh
forced the girl to remove the cover from her face. The Arab main stream press said," What else can
you expect from Sheikh Tantavi, appointed to the high office by President Mubarak, he has to say
what the government wants him to say.BESIDES AL AZHAR IS NOT ANY MORE THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC
AUTHORITY. THE WESTERN MEDIA OFTEN TOUTS IT AS SOLE AUTHORITY OF SUNNI MUSLIMS.
I AM HERE IN THE GCC SINCE THE THREE DECADES AND HAVE BEEN AROUND THE MENA REGION, EVERY ONE KNOW HOW FATWAS
CAN BE BOUGHT FROM AL AZHAR.
WE HAD SUCH WAYWARD SHEIKS IN THE PAST ALSO . IBN HAZIM AL ZAHIRI, TAHIR MAQDISI AND IBN FARRAJ
AL ISFHANI ,WHOSE FATAWAS ON MUSIC AND SINGING ARE TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY AGAINST THE "JAMHOOR".
DEOBAND, NADWA AND OTHER SALAFI SCHOLARS AND ULEMAS HAVE SAID, THAT SUCH FRINGE OPINIONS
FATWAS AND OBSERVATIONS SHOULD BEST BE IGNORED ANY COMMENT GIVES THESE FRINGE ELEMENTS
PUBLICITY.

REVIEW-JASWANT SINGH BOOK

BOOK REVIEW

Jinnah –India-partition-Independence.

Authour: Jaswant Singh.

Many books have been written about the most tragic event of the 20^th century, the partition of India into two separate identities, India and Pakistan. The trauma of tearing apart two people so intricately woven into a common social pattern, yet maintaining their own distinct religious codes of life without disturbing the mosaic, is so deep and hurting that it still haunts the millions on either side.

Jaswant Singh’s voluminous book, “Jinnah India Partition Independence,” has nothing more and nothing less to add to the historical facts that many authours have reported in versions printed after the release of official British documents dealing with the transfer of power in India in 1967.

Like previous post 1967 publication he has demolished the accounts ,myths and made to believe stories commissioned biographers and historians from either side of the divide, about the roles of the main players in this bloody episode, Jinnah, Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Sardar Patel and His Majesty’s Government. He has blamed all major players and found them wanting on various fronts. He has accused the Congress,and Nehru by virtue of his being it’s leader and Sardar Patel directly for the divide. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, he writes was left with no choice but to demand Pakistan, since Nehru would not accept the Muslim League as sole representative of the Muslims.

The book has created a hype of its own, written by a high ranking Hindu politician, of the Bharatya Janta Party(BJP),the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayam sevak Sangh, RSS, an extreme right wing Hindu organization. Jaswant Singh considered a dove among the hawk dominated BJP was Foreign and later Finance Minister in 1999-2004 NDA government, a coalition lead by BJP.

He exudes deep sympathy for the Muslims who are in India. Pitying them for being “abandoned, bereft of sense of real kinship of not being:one: in their entirety with the rest, deprived of the essence of psychological security.” Yet he has no comment in his book of any kind on the genocide of 2000 Muslims in the 2002 Gujarat riots .

The 669 page hardback has glossy-coloured cover with a bust size photo of Jinnah in a jacket and tie, while the reverse has Jinnah in a Sherwani and“Jinnah Cap.” A combo of rare pictures show the handsome young Jinnah in his trade mark double- breast suits, felt hat and two tone shoes in company of his daughter Dina sister Fatima, Congress and Muslim League leaders and the aging and old tired Quaid in a black Sherwani.

The tome differs from other publications on the subject in that , Jaswant Singh has gone deep into search to find out why Jinnah, the staunch nationalist, dubbed, “ Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity,” by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, following the 1916 Lucknow Pact (Jinnah vociferously holding brief for Hindu-Muslim Unity), becomes the Quaid- E-Azam within a short span of five years from 1937 to 1942. He says he was cautioned not to venture on this path. “I persisted for it was a journey of my own, of my re-discovery and a clearer understanding of why India had been partitioned.”He says his attempt recapture the essence of 1906-1947 and hereafter is in the mould of what the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, believed that history is to be, rather ought to be .

And when read in full by Pakistani media, intellectuals and academics, perhaps he will not be spared the flak for assessing Pakistan a “Conceptual Orphan” as result of barren attainment, breaking up on language issue( Bangladesh).

He is generous in praising Jinnah, “though from a trading community he had not the traders conciliation, accommodation or pursuit of profits, not at all, he was by nature determined and combative, his nationalism was not born of self-interest, it was by product of his free spirited nature, his thriving legal practice, which he had earned on his own merit.” He praises Jinnah’s guts and courage to be committed to eradication of British insolence on one hand and of a feeling of inferiority and mortification by the Indians on the hand. He says Jinnah was self made man. Unlike Gandhi, who was a son of a Diwan, Jinnah had no such handicap. Quoting from Syed Pirzad’s film on Jinnah’s life, how he struggled in Bombay as a young fresh barrister from the UK having no money for bus or tram ride. He quotes Jinnah saying at later stage of his life how he survived those days of penury by taking bets on a game of billiards at the Watson Hotel billiard parlour.

He is also critical of Jinnah, finding faults with his political thoughts, attitudes, and conduct in securing space for the Muslims in the shape of Pakistan. He says Nehru and Gandhi failed in their goals and targets. All three he says failed in delivering promises to their respective people. Citing from Hector Bolitho’s book, “In quest for Jinnah” where a close camp flower of Jinnah describes him as having tremendous ego and always susceptible to flattery, and becoming irate as his health began fading preferring “yes men” around him.

The Congress is blamed for dishing out Pakistan to Jinnah. Nehru takes much flak and shown defying Gandhi’s acceptances of Jinnah’s two basic and fundamental demands among the 14 point formula of federalizing India, with Muslim rule in provinces of Muslims majority and one third Muslim seats in the Central Executive. Ironically later in the chapter “In retrospect” he questions the probity of granting special rights to selected people despite the Indian Constitution giving equal rights to all.

Raking deep into India’s ancient past from its interaction commercial as well as martial with Islam. He describes the advent of invasions in India in three broad waves, starting with the Arabs, in the seventh and eighth century, followed by Afghan and Persians and finally the Turkic-Moghul invasion that made a permanent impression on Indian cultural, religious and political canvas. This last invasion routinely described as “Muslim Conquest”by historians, he says, “this is an oddity, to term this period from the thirteenth century to the eighteenth as the, “Muslim era” is wrong,also simplistic.” He argues that any invasions cannot be termed by faith or religion. The identity of the invader has to be termed in ethnicity and the place of origin of the invader. “How is it that British conquest of India, though in stages is just “British” and not “Christian”. This he says has given birth to the fixation with such a misleading phraseology in the case of Islam alone and the notion of Islamic conquest of India. He argues that it was this notion that eventually became Jinnah’s assertion for a separate nation within India and continues to haunt the polity on either side.

The last chapter of the book, he raises questions like the decision of giving special rights to selective groups , in post-1947 India, once the constitution guarantees equal rights to all, with Muslims starting to demand a share. “This invites a rejoinder woundingly voiced,almost always tauntingly asking “ Special rights ? Still ? Even after Pakistan ? Why ? That is why this question of the unfinished agenda of partition keeps surfacing,” he concludes.(End.)

IFTAR PARTIES-BUILD BRIDGES

Food and sharing food goes a long way in making friends. During the month of Ramdan Iftar(breaking fast)
with family and friends has been an ancient tradition of the Islamic Society.In the Arab world it is common
to see huge crowds of people sharing Iftar meals in mosques and public squares under especially erected
tents. While at the higher end, the well heeled also indulge in this ritual.
Bill Clinton, former US President started the trend or was it Bush Senior, of holding Iftar for selected
leaders of the Muslims community in the US.
In India the largest democracy having the largest minority about 200 million Muslims. The trend of
holding Iftar parties was started by India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. It served the
purpose brought politicians of all parties together in spirit of bonhomie, though for a short while.
No known scholar(islamic) has condemned these Iftar parties.
There should not so much of hue and cry at the Vice President of India Hamid Ansari hosting an Iftar
party. The Indian missions all over the Gulf and Arab countries do so inviting local dignitaries and expat Indians.