And
to you your faith, and to me mine. (Al-Quran, 109-6)
By all accounts it appears that January 17, 2014 was the day
Khuzaima Qutbuddin had been waiting for.
Within a couple of hours of Moulanal Muqaddas’ demise, the Qutbuddin coterie
went into a frothy frenzy making tall claims and mounting a bevy of falsehoods upon
the 53rd Dai al-Mutlaq, Moula Mufaddal Saifuddin (tus).
On March 19, Khuzaima Qutbuddin’s son Abdeali went on record
in an Indian tabloid saying that “since [the nass] three years ago the
community has become regressive... My father, on the other hand, wants to bring
the true identity of the community back.”
Interesting. We are
left to wonder whether in the last three years it has been the drive for tanazzuf
that has made us regressive. Or has it
been the planting of trees and the development of urban gardens. Or the distribution of food to every mumin
household every single day of the year. Or the call to be dressed appropriately
so that we are judged by our intelligence and not by our appearance. Or the ambition to have at least one Hafizul
Quran in each family. Or the
encouragement of mumin men and women to pursue education to live lives abuzz
with entrepreneurship, constructive activity, and industry instead of being
enslaved by unsavory employers or being afflicted by the malaise of doing
nothing. How very regressive of governments
and organizations around the world who are funneling billions of dollars to
encourage many of these very initiatives among their populations never mind
with a much lower success rate than Moula (tus).
Abdeali Qutbuddin’s outrageous statement not only went
against any grain of truth and reality there ever was, it loudly echoed the ideology
of the “reformist” camp who as we well know have tried in vain for decades to undermine
the Dawat. The declaration also instantly
aroused the media’s continual intrigue with Islam and its perceived ill-alignment
with progress. It was a quick and
calculated way to guarantee that the upcoming weeks would be tainted with
constant media battering of our faith and to harangue and harass Moula (tus) in
a time of loss and grief. And given that
everything in the last three years happened with the raza and rida of Syedna
Mohammed Burhanuddin (ra), Abdeali Qutbuddin’s insidious statement was only a poorly
veiled attempt at questioning Moula Burhanuddin’s legitimacy as the 52nd
Dai al-Mutlaq.
Some of us thought at first the smear campaign might run out
of steam before too long. But it seems
that the greed-fueled onslaught has barely just begun. Society’s insatiable thirst for
sensationalism and gossip combined with the omnipresence of social media
ensures that the squeaky wheel does indeed get the grease.
And so this is no longer the time to watch silently on the
sidelines. Moula’s magnanimity and
forbearance must never be misconstrued as weakness. The day has come for us, the followers of
Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin (tus), to wear our hearts on our sleeves, beat the
drums, raise our voices, and make sure our loyalties are heard loud and clear
and show the naysayers that our lives, our livelihoods, our relationships, and
our souls are so much the better for no other reason other than our association
with Moula (tus).
Consequently and understandably, we mumineen have begun to
defend ourselves against these baseless allegations designed to defame Moula
(tus). And we must do our utmost to shine
light on the idiocy emerging from the fringes of Mumbai. Thought-provoking and
well-articulated essays have gone viral on the blogosphere and excellent
rebuttals to Khuzaima Qutbuddin’s defenseless claims are being widely shared
not to convince us for we don’t need convincing but to let fact and truth speak
for themselves.
In all of this discussion, we must also consider whether we
are being inadvertently led into the trap of judging our sense of self or our progress
and liberation using an external, foreign perspective. We know that Khuzaima Qutbuddin’s kith and
kin have sold their souls to embrace a cherry-picked paradigm that delivers
pure convenience. Will our arguments on
Islam and progress and liberation then ever persuade an audience that has
pre-conceived, ill-informed, and deep-seated biases? Are we channeling our energies to bridge a
gap that may or may not ever close?
As we go down this road, let us remind the self-proclaimed
bastions of progress that progress and liberation is widely understood to be
the presence of equal socioeconomic rights and opportunities. What these rights and opportunities are have
not been defined in absolute terms by society.
If the last century is anything to go by, we know that progress is
temporal and continuously in flux as society has and continues to debate
resolutions over slavery, women’s suffrage, racial segregation, abortion, and
gay marriage.
So unlike the Qutbuddins we don’t need to clamor to show the
world we are in congruence with its transient ideas that are here today, gone
tomorrow, and condemned the day after.
We are not going to waste our time trying to steer a boat whose
direction changes with the prevailing wind.
Nor are we willing to abandon our morals to prove that our beliefs
converge with the inscriptions drawn on the shifting sands of popular public
opinion of the day. We’d rather as
quickly focus our energies on our pride that comes from knowing our lives
conform to a timeless philosophy anchored in solid ground, one that has come
from Allah through Rasulullah (saw) and is espoused by Aimmat Tahereen (as) and
their Duat Mutlaqeen (sa).
Unfortunately for them in their pressing need to reconcile themselves
with the world the Qutbuddins have jettisoned the true liberation that comes
from our connection with Moula (tus). Moula
Mohammed Burhanuddin would often talk about the concept of real progress and
liberation. As he once said:
Today Moula Mufaddal Saifuddin (tus) is reminding us of that
very philosophy lest we get carried away by some ephemeral currents to rocky
shores. Unlike Khuzaima Qutbuddin, Moula
(tus) has his fingers on our pulse, he understands our aspirations, predicaments,
and fears so well it is uncanny how he responds to them preemptively. How many of us have sat through a waaz or
bayan and been taken aback by how Moula (tus) confronts issues that deep down
within us hound us, create conflicts, and raise questions. How many countless times has he liberated us
from our own demons?
But one wouldn’t expect the Qutbuddins to understand this basic
idea. Those who have chosen to take off (among
other things) the qiladas of Imamuz Zaman’s ghulami must not, by definition,
believe in the idea of true progress and eternal liberation.
So let us stand tall and declare that our progress, liberty,
dignity, strength, and our true identity comes from our Mawali Kiram who have
defined these ideas. Let us scream from pillar to post that we are proud of who
we are, the clothes we wear, the food we cook, the language we speak, the
education we receive, and our way of life because all of that comes from our
Moula (tus). And let the Qutbuddins know
that we will do as our Moula (tus) wants and desist as he deems fit and we
would only expect the standard bearers of progress and liberation to defend
vigorously our right to our beliefs.
