Archive for October, 2011
The true face of Kashmir Valley Islamism : no Christian “conversion”
There is a huge amount of web-chatter and media frenzy generated on the rare reports of alleged “saffron” atrocity on Christian proselytizers in India. There are even seminars and media spotlights on the secular bandwagon in India expressing solidarity or mounting public indignation shows at perceived “lesser penalties” for such alleged atrocities. Web based Christian views roundly and justifiably highlight the issue.
Interestingly, these same voices – both inside India and outside, Christians or Hindus who have learned to hate their birth culture, apparently still remain rather silent about the open threats issued by Kashmir Valley Muslims against Christian missionary and especially conversion activities.
In a recent open warning the Ameer of Karwani Islami, Maulana Ghulam Rasool Hami, has apparently expressed serious concern over the alleged role of Christian missionaries in converting young Kashmiri Muslim boys and girls to Christianity.
On Sunday, 30th October, Hami said that some Christian missionaries were attempting to alter the Muslim majority character of Jammu and Kashmir at the behest of America and Israel and added that “We ask Muslims who have fallen for the trap of these missionaries and converted to Christianity to present themselves before Ulema before Eid-ul-Azha, and seek repentance from Allah…..Otherwise, Karwani Islami and Darul-Ifta will convene a joint session of Ulema and Muftis on November 11 and issue a fatwa(decree) of social boycott against these converts”.
According to Hami, the Ulema will not remain silent over the activities of Christian missionaries. “ They are luring young Muslims with money to convert and we will go to any extent to stop their activities,” he said.
Hami and his Karwani Islami is not dismissible as an isolated, “fringe” group – as is typically done by so-called secularist apologists of Islamic sectarianism and exclusivism . Just few two days before, Mufti Bashir-ud-din – J&K’s official ” mufti azam”, or head Muslim clergyman – issued new summons to a leading Christian priest, CM Khanna, on Friday, asking him to appear before his court to explain his alleged activities of reported conversions of young local boys and girls at his church in Srinagar. Khanna alleged in counter that the mufti was annoyed with him because Khanna had expressed his inability to help the mufti in the admission of a boy to a Christian missionary school. Talking to Times of India, Mufti Azaam Bashir-ud-din is reported to have said: “Our shariat court had summoned the Christian priest, CM Khanna, to appear personally today at 11am but he failed to appear. Now we have issued fresh summons to him for personal appearance on November 12.”
I have often come up against the explanation for the alleged atrocities committed on Hindus in the Portuguese colony of Goa, apparently to cleanse the pagan out of Indians – known infamously as the Goan Inquisition – that the “Church” had nothing to do with it, and it was all about politics and politicians who were on the ground from the Portuguese side. No atrocity is ever to be blamed on “religion” but on the over-zealousness and “misinterpretations” of “one and only true doctrine of pure love and mercy” – all three mutually exclusive versions. It seems that the same logic is not to be applied to non-Judaeo-Christian-Islamic traditions -for whom all atrocities carried out by people overtly and officially allied to the religions stem from the religions themselves.
But when the same thing happens within a Judaeo-Christian tradition like Islamism, it becomes immensely problematic from the theoretical apologetics viewpoints. Here the theologians themselves are taking up the cudgel and clearly sourcing it within the claims of one-sided right to convert others.
It would be interesting to see some explanations of the puzzling silence from “secularists” and Christian evangelists!
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