Shekhar Gupta: Hello and welcome to walk the talk. I am Shekhar Gupta in Bombay’s Worli sea face and my guest this week, well, I could describe him rock star of tele-evangelism, but surprise of surprises, he is not preaching what you would expect tele-evangelists to preach. He is preaching Islam, modern Islam, and not just Islam but his own interpretation of all the faiths around the world. 43-year-old Zakir Naik. Welcome to walk the talk
Zakir Naik: Hi, nice meeting you. It’s a pleasure.
Shekhar Gupta: Nice meeting you. An Islamic preacher, dressed in suit and tie, using medium of television, when you would expect in these times of sort of Talibanisation, people would think that Islamic preachers are telling Muslims to throw television sets away. You are a different kind of person
Zakir Naik: No actually I follow, as you said, modern Islam I believe in interpretation of Quran and Hadith . I go back to the original sources. When I speak about religion, I go back to the original scriptures. When I speak about Hindu religion I go back to the Veda, when I speak about Islam I go back to the Quran and the authentic Hadith and then I present it to the world
Shekhar Gupta: By doing that you build this following of literally, crores and crores of people around the world
Zakir Naik: It’s god’s grace.
Shekhar Gupta: You said you go to the original sources, so are you suggesting that many others who use the medium of Islam to put many restrictions, watching television for example, going to a model school, particularly for women, they are not reading the original scriptures?
Zakir Naik: What I believe they may take a verse of the Quran and Hadith and misinterpret it. Maybe there is a scholar who has misinterpreted it, 50 years back, 100 years back, 200 years back, so they believe in his view directly, without going to the source. What I do, whenever I read the statement of a scholar I go back and see why he has said that thing. Most of the people, they just believe and quote the scholar without checking what he has quoted and from where he has got it. What we believe there is no verse in the Quran or the hadith that which says that the television is prohibited.
Shekhar Gupta: Right
Shekhar Gupta: So do you believe that Islam has actually, undeservingly got a bad name, because of wrong interpretation of the original scriptures by many?
Zakir Naik: That’s right. I agree with you totally. It is the most misconceived religion in the world, most misunderstood religion.
Shekhar Gupta: Give me some examples. Because you talk to people around the world.
Zakir Naik: For example, as we were saying, the most misunderstood word in Islam is jihad.
People have a wrong notion, and they have the wrong information just by the television media etc, because as you know jihad originally, the Arabic word comes from the word jiddhu jehad, which means to strive and to struggle. That’s it. It means to strive and to struggle.
Shekhar Gupta: Does it mean holy war?
Zakir Naik: It doesn’t mean at all. This if you see that jiddhu jehad means to strive and to struggle, in Islamic context it means to strive and to struggle against own evil inclinations, to strive and struggle to make the society better. Even if a person is striving and struggling in the battle to defend himself, it is called jihad. This word holy war was first used by the Christian crusaders. And now it’s used for the Muslims unfortunately. Because holy war, in Arabic if you translate means Harman mukkad dasa. The word Harman mukkad dasa doesn’t appear anywhere in the Quran.
Shekhar Gupta: There are invocations for Muslims who rise in jihad either against the West, or in some places against India, or wherever. People who give these invocations haven’t read their books right
Zakir Naik: Some may be right, some may be wrong
Shekhar Gupta: Right
Zakir Naik: For example if someone says, I am going to do jihad to clean up the society and he says that pornography should be removed from society, he’s right. So he’s striving and struggling to remove obscenity from society which is right. But to say in terms which is wrong, which is against the Koran and the Hadith, for example the Koran says in, chapter number 5, verse no: 32, if any human being kills any other human being, whether Muslim or non-Muslim unless it be for murder or for creating corruption in the land, it is as though he has killed the whole of humanity. So any Muslim kills any other non-Muslim, an innocent non-Muslim or a Muslim that is against the Koran.
Shekhar Gupta: That would apply to the people who went around killing people in 26/11
Zakir Naik: Hundred per cent. It is against the teaching of the Koran Hadith. 26/11, 11 September in new york twin tower killing innocent people even a single Koran goes ahead and says if you kill a single human being it is as though you have killed the whole of humanity. One, they have killed thousands in the world trade centre and even here, 26/11, hundreds, it is totally against the religion.
Shekhar Gupta: And to kill in the name of Islam is unfair to Islam?
Zakir Naik: Unless, unless the verse says unless he has killed someone else for justice or created corruption in the land. So if it falls under these two categories of murder against murder or spreading corruption in the land, that is the time.
Shekhar Gupta: That’s the other thing...if I say if one has to read the collected works of Dr Zakir Naik, those are in your DVDs, very fascinating thing is your faith in the Indian system, the constitution, the judiciary, it’s so refreshing
Zakir Naik: That’s right, that’s right.
Shekhar Gupta: Where does that come from?
Zakir Naik: What I believe that when I go and see the background, I am a person who observe the thing objectively, rather than going emotionally and news you know. When I see that even innocent people, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, if they are harassed by certain people for their own motives, finally judicial system comes to their help. You may get that help maybe 2 years later, or 5 years later, or 10 years later, but they get that clean chit. So seeing that I have more faith in the judicial system. That’s the reason when they ask me about Sadhvi, I say she is neither good nor bad, neither terrorist, neither saint, but that is not reported in the paper that Dr Zakir Naik is neutral to a Sadhvi. Because I use the same scale for a Muslim or non-Muslim.
Constitution is what gives every citizen an equal right but there are many in the Muslim community in particular who complain that this is not good enough, that the Indian system is not good enough, who lack faith in the system
Zakir Naik: As far as the Indian Constitution is concerned, I’ve said that in my lecture many times, that I am proud to be an Indian. India is one of the few countries in the world, that gives a right to its citizens to preach, practise and follow the religion. So as far as all the constitutions in countries around the world that I have seen India is the best I can say.
Shekhar Gupta: When you say some people disagree with your discourses with this I presume many of them are young people. Why are some young Muslims angry in India?
Zakir Naik: Maybe that some of the youngsters may have been brainwashed with wrong information. But this some is few. For my talks many youngsters come and you find a large gathering. But thing is that they may have been fed with the wrong information. So what I believe I am proud of my country and happy to be in India. I would like to live in India.
Shekhar Gupta: And you through your discourses try to give them the right information....
Zakir Naik: That’s right. I feel that the Hindus and Muslims used to live harmoniously together. It is due to the British policy of divide and rule that caused all this friction. But what I feel that because there is no animosity in terms like, that what we realize that, now what we feel, what we see a few instances it is more because I have said these people are being brainwashed. But as a whole the Indian Muslims they feel like taking to the Koran, they feel like taking to the Hadith.
Shekhar Gupta: .....keep on taking the message of modern religion, modern spirituality to wider and wider audiences and I do hope you stay out of politics. Thank you very much
Zakir Naik: Thank you