by Mac Haque
The moment as I had anticipated for years is NOW.
Screams of “Islam is in Danger” since yesterday the 19th February 2013 by Jamaat e Islami and their cohorts, with the Projonmo Chottor Movement being unable to respond in kind is reminiscent of 1971. It took us nine months of bloodbath and millions dead to prove to the Jamaati murder merchants that they were dead wrong. Islam was never ever in danger in Bangladesh and never will be. If it ever was, their ‘voices’ wouldn’t have been heard today. Yet we must stop and pause and ask ourselves the fundamental question: What ‘Islam’ are we really talking about today? In 1500 years Islam has split officially into 72 firqas (sects) – unofficially it is probably over a thousand.
But does egalitarian ‘Muhammadi Islam’ of the marginalized or the striving and struggling people as desired by the Prophet exists in this chaos? The loudest voice we hear today are from the virulent and violent Salafi/Wahabi zealots the core ‘belief system’ of the murderous Moudadi inspired Jamaat e Islami, who are no more than an extension of ‘monarchic Islam’ imposed per force after they were usurped from Muslims less than 300 years after the death of the Prophet.
Driven by spurious and manmade Hadith – they degrade the meaning of the words within the body of the Qu’ran to suit their exploitative, divisive and murderous agenda. These Hadith’s have traditionally been used to imply that the Qu’ran is incomplete and therefore has to be interpreted by these self proclaimed ‘Ulemas’ and Scholars – whereas it says nowhere in the Qu’ran that one needs any kind of assistance from them. Our relationship with Allah is secret and sacred. Each women/man is to herself/himself and it better be that way.
It is most unfortunate that whenever we talk about Islam – we by implication tend to believe in the fictitious and murderous Islam propounded by the Salafi/Wahabi bigots. ‘Mainstream Islam’ which the ‘masses’ have been led to believe that this is Pukka (kosher) Islam. This is certainly NOT the Islam of Bengal. We have absolutely nothing in common with the Islam of Saudia Arabia, Taliban Afghanistan or Pakistan. The 1971 War of Liberation was fought to move away from these essentially hateful and murderous Kafis who masquerade as ‘Muslims’.
It is time to take the Projonmo Chottor Movement forward keeping the highest ideals of Ma’arefoti, Murshidi and Fakiri Islam that has always been the belief system of our marginalized. It is the strength of the grass root Islam of Bengal that has not only scared the religious bigots, but also out elite as much as the Media for we have always looked at the teachings of our Fakirs, Shadhus and Dervishes being a ‘subordinate culture’ of the riff raffs.
Yet we forget that historically inroads of Islam into Bangladesh did not come by swords – but by the benevolent and tolerant messages of Sufi Saints. There are per square miles more Sufi Saints and their tombs strewn all across Bangladesh than anywhere else in the world. We live in a Spiritual Shield that neither Jamaat nor its Zionist patrons can ever pierce and take off our heads. What more proof do we need to convince anyone about the Islam that our ancestors and predecessors preached and propagated?
It is time that the Projonmmo Chottor Movement gives a befitting reply and enough fodder in materials, songs and discourses are available in the public domain in the works of Fakir Lalon Shah and others. Now is the time to give the movement not a ‘religious’- BUT a spiritual dimension.
I REPEAT, the enemy today is Kafirs masquerading as Muslims and pretending to be defenders of Islam. These are the same Kafirs and infidels whose hearts didn’t dither when they slaughtered the grandchildren of Prophet Muhammad – courtesy of their usurped ‘Khalifa’ Iyazid. To imagine that they would have any hesitation to slaughter our children at the Projonmo Chottor is dwelling in fool’s paradise.
Are we ready for the challenge or are we again going to be slaughtered as we were in 1971?
