A Global Fault Line: The retreat of Muslim Moderates.

By Lewis M. Simons NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 7, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 16, 2009

When young Barack Hussein Obama lived with his American mother and Indonesian stepfather in Jakarta nearly 40 years ago, the Muslims of Southeast Asia were renowned for their moderation. Women may have covered their hair with a light scarf, but almost none veiled their faces. It was the rare Muslim man who grew a beard, and many drank with non-Muslim friends.

Today, as Obama prepares to meet with Southeast Asia's leaders in Singapore, all that, and more, is shifting. Moderation is suspect, as many of the region's quarter billion Muslims—more than in the Middle East—turn to the birthplace of Islam to reaffirm their religious identity. Though still a distinct minority, fundamentalists are demanding—and obtaining—a greater role for Sharia, or religious law, in family life and in the life of the nation.

In recent travel, I found signs of the drift throughout the region's five major Islamic centers: Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern -Phil- ippines, southern Thailand, and Singapore. Nowhere was it more jarring than Bulukumba, on the orchid-shaped Indonesian island of Sulawesi. With 350,000 people, mostly farmers whose holdings are shrinking as the population booms, Bulukumba is one of the poorest places on the island, and religious rule has supplanted the secular. In 2006 radical clergy, backed by sympathetic local politicians, military, and police officers, imposed Sharia over constitutional law. Today, Bulukumba is just one of more than two dozen such towns in the archipelago. Women are required to wear the jilbab, or headscarf. Wage earners are required to contribute 2.5 percent of their income as zakat, or alms. Children by the age of 7 must prove reading proficiency of the Quran in Arabic to qualify for elementary school. So must couples seeking approval to marry, and civil serv-ants applying for promotion.

Similar changes are happening in Malaysia. When I met with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, I related this little story: in 1970, during a dinner party, my wife found herself dancing a quadrille with his father, then–prime minister Tun Abdul Razak, and I with his mother. A cloud crossed Najib's face. He peered directly at me over his wire-rim glasses and said nothing. Such behavior, we both understood, would be out of the question in today's Malaysia, now a proudly Islamic fundamentalist state.

Along the border, Muslims and Buddhists in southern Thailand are slaughtering each other. Since 2004, some 3,500 have been killed. The government in Bangkok says the Muslim fighters are common criminals. But in the city of Hat Yai, Monsour Salleh, a counselor to the militant Muslim Youth Association of Thailand, praised them as religious warriors. "The young generation of Muslims believes in jihad," he said. "They are good boys, dignified and committed, who study the Quran. They learn that if they fight to right injustice, they will be rewarded in heaven."

In the small southern Philippines town of Pikit, on the terror-torn island of Basilan, a Roman Catholic priest told me that fundamentalist attitudes were hardening among the Moros, as Muslims in the area are known. "It's an identity crisis," said Father Bert Layson, who is openly sympathetic to the Moros. "And it's been infinitely heightened through globalism by the international Islamic revival. This is leading the Moros back to their old belief that they must live in an Islamic environment in order to truly practice Islam." An estimated 120,000 Muslims and Christians have killed each other in the southern Philippines since 1970.

Singaporeans—obedient, relentlessly middle-class, and overwhelmingly ethnic Chinese—were stunned when, in 2001, the government narrowly averted a sophisticated attack planned by homegrown members of the Jemaah Islamiah terror organization. As on any taut ship, Singapore's captain remains obsessed over a future threat. "We're sitting on a global fault line," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told me.

Now, on Obama's first trip to Southeast Asia as president, the region's leaders are pressing him to reengage with a part of the world the U.S. has largely ignored. He would be wise to accede. For even as fundamentalism advances among them, the Muslims of Southeast Asia want Americans—in sandals and sneakers, not combat boots—to return and work with them as Peace Corps volunteers, teachers, agriculturalists, and entrepreneurs. This may be the best chance the United States will have to launch a "preemptive peace," a chance to set things right with Muslims everywhere.

Simons, a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist, is coauthor with U.S. Sen. Christopher Bond of The Next Front: Southeast Asia and the Road to Global Peace With Islam.

HUBRIS OF DARUL ULOOM :Frightening Contours of a State Within State

By: Ram Kumar Ohri, IPS (Retd)

Darul Uloom has done it again. By issuing a Fatwa, loaded with fundamentalist frenzy, the seminary has reiterated its earlier stand that singing of the national song, Vande Matram, by Muslims is ‘haram’. Obviously the Deoband Ulema have openly expressed utter contempt for the majesty of India’s Constitution and delivered a body blow to the ideal of national integration. The timing of the ‘fatwa’ has surprised everyone, especially when the stand of the Ulema had been known now for several years. Apparently the provocation for spewing hatred against singing of ‘Vande Matram’ by Muslims, once again, was the visit of the Union Home Minister to Deoband and the presence of renowned Hindu Yoga Guru, Swami Ramdev, at the massive conclave of Muslim clerics. No wonder the air is thick once again with acrid smoke rising out of the communal cauldron lit by the Deoband clergy. The facile reasoning of the Ulema against singing of Vande Matram is that the national song means bowing before Mother India, and bowing before anyone except Allah militates against the tenets of Islam. Though the fanatic Ulema, Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e Hind and members of the Muslim Personal Law Board loudly proclaim that Muslim cannot bow before anyone except Allah, they conveniently forget that in the not too distant past, during Muslim rule, all Muslims, including the highest of the Ulema, had no hesitation in bowing before Muslim rulers like Akbar, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb and several cruel kings. And there is no dearth of Muslims in India who readily bow before their fathers and mothers. What could then be the motive of re- issuing the fatwa against Vande Matram? Well, the intention was to emphasise the separate identity of Muslims and keeping them away from the national mainstream.

Another fatwa issued by the Ulema of Darul Uloom was against acts of terrorism and suicide bombing being committed across the globe by Muslims. The ulema declared that these were against the basic tenets of Islam. But it came with a rider in the form of a caveat that concept of jihad is a constructive phenomenon - whatever that might mean.

Interestingly the website of Darul Uloom defines ‘terrorism’ as the “struggle of resistance of the weak for securing their legitimate rights against suppression.” Could there be a more brazen attempt to defend the jihadi terror stalking the civil society worldwide? Reiteration of Deoband’s earlier fatwa against Vande Matram issued in 2006 and the so-called fatwa against terrorism and suicide bombing are only one part of the sordid story. Darul Uloom issued another 23 fatwas out of which seven are listed below as examples of Deoband’s separatist agenda -

1. Muslims should not use ‘namaste’ as greetings and must always say ‘salam’ ;
2. Muslims should refrain from watching television and listen to radio music ;
3. Muslims should refuse to get inoculated for Aids or Polio ;
4. Muslims should oppose the proposed Women’s Reservation Bill ;
5. Girls who are ten years old and above must be educated only in madarasas ;
6. Muslims must always emphasise their religious identity; and
7. The Madarasa Board proposed by the government was unacceptable and will be opposed by the community.

These ‘fatwas’ unequivocally emphasise the separatist mindset being promoted among Muslims by the clerics of Deoband. Apparently, the Union Home Minister, P.C. Chidambram, and Baba Ramdev appear to be unaware of the communal agenda of Darul Uloom and the fact that it has played a major role in spawning terrorism both in India and Pakistan by incessantly preaching and promoting the fundamentalist version of Islam, i.e., the Wahabi Islam. Not only this, the Deoband Ulema have been openly preaching the use of violence to spread Islam, the so-called religion of peace. As candidly pointed out in an article by Arif Mohammed Khan, a former Union Minister, the syllabus of Darul Uloom states : “When the Muslims enter the enemy’s country and besiege the cities or strongholds of the infidels, it is necessary to invite them to embrace the faith, because Ibn Abbas relates of the Prophet that he never destroyed any without previously inviting them to embrace the faith. If therefore they embrace the faith, it is unnecessary to war with them, because that which was the design of the war is then obtained without war.1 The syllabus further elaborates that the Prophet has said that ‘we are directed to make war upon men only until such time as they shall confess, “There is no God, but one God”.2

Thus while comfortably enconsed in India and shouting from housetops that they are totally loyal to the country, the Deoband ulema have been openly preaching jihad against the infidels (read kaffir Hindus). Could there be any worse instance of doublespeak? For a while let us try to analyse and understand the implications of what Darul Uloom has been preaching, say in the context of the dastardly attack by Pakistan sponsored fidayeens on 26 /11 for murderous mayhem across Mumbai.

According to Darul Uloom’s interpretation of scriptural war against infidels what those ten fidayeens after entering Mumbai should have done was to serve a notice on the Hindus to embrace Islam, as commanded by the Prophet. And if the kaffirs did not agree to embrace Islam, the fidayeens would have been fully justified in killing them. That is what the syllabus of Deoband seminary appears to teach to Muslim students, and in the process revealing the true face of Darul Uloom !

The activities of Darul Uloom not only militate against national integration, but its teachings are totally anti-national. By telling Muslims not to use ‘namaste’ for the purpose of greeting each other, and aggressively opposing the national policy of eradication of Polio and Aids, the ulema are working overtime to create a separatist Muslim state within the Indian state. Time has to come for the government as well as the Indian people to confront them and tell them either to behave or to shut down their shop of separatism and fanaticism.

In our secularitis infected polity no one expected P. C. Chidambram to say good bye to the policy of minority appeasement. But Swami Ramdev ought to have known better. He should have realized long ago that there is a total disconnect between the ideals enshrined in the Indian Constitution and the preaching of violence by Darul Uloom. Nothing could be more distressing than the ugly spectacle of dhimmitude which Swami Ramdev presented while trying to appease the jihad preaching ulema of Deoband. Hellbent on insulting Swami Ramdev, after passing the controversial fatwa against Vande Matram on November 3, 2009, they decreed on November 7, 2009, that Muslims must not attend Swami Ramdev’s health camps because of the singing of Vande Matram.

It is a shame that even after being insulted repeatedly, many self-styled Hindu seers refuse to learn even elementary lessons in self respect. Barely four days after the Deoband conclave, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, another 5-star high flyer Hindu guru, rushed to Darul Uloom and tried to appease the fundamentalist clerics by pleading that the word ‘vande’ in the national song, Vande Matram, does not mean worship of Mother India. That marked a new low in abject appeasement by Sri Sri who seems to have acquired not an iota of Hindu pride even after reading Gita and other sacred sciptures !.

Interestingly the syllabus of Darul Uloom also constitutes the bedrock of Islamic teaching in tens of thousands of madrasas affiliated to Deoband spread out across the length and breadth of India and Pakistan. The truth is that Darul Uloom has been responsible for fanning the prairie fire of global jihad. A further confirmation about the fundamentalist role of Deoband seminary came from Sohail Abbas, a leading Pakistan-based psychologist, whose published study revealed that out of 517 jihadis arrested in Afghanistan and lodged in Pakistani jails the overwhelming majority belonged to Deoband school of thought.3 The ideology being preached by Darul Uloom is playing havoc with the security of Indian nation and our secular ideal.

Before concluding, it would be in order to warn our peace-preaching 5-star seers like Swami Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to take sometime off their busy schedule (read money-making business activity) to study the concept of jihad and understand what propels the ulemas, living in India, to openly preach war against the so-called ‘kaffirs’. For all practical purposes, these clerics appear to be part of the global Islamic design to establish a ‘seamless caliphate’ from Indonesia to the Balkans after overrunning India which is the only non-Muslim country in South Asia, and a bulwark of democracy and secularism in this part of the world.

And a word of caution to our 5-star lifestyle seers and gurus, merrily wearing dyed hair and beards to look younger than their age. It is time they watched their step, lest the future generations wrote their names in the book of Infamous Hindus who let down their besieged community in hour of crisis. A warning has already been administered by some sadhus of Ayodhya to Baba Ramdev for his failure to oppose the fatwa against Vande Matram. They minced no words when they proclaimed that Swami Ramdev has become a businessman. Mahant Narayan Giri went a step further and asked Swami Ramdev to seek forgiveness for not protesting at Deoband and thereby hurting the sentiments of crores of Indians.
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1. Arif Mohammed Khan, ‘Sending A Wrong Message’, Times of India, New Delhi,
September 30, 2008, p. 20 ;
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Copyright @ Ram Kumar Ohri