Editorial

Rethinking should gain centrality in the scheme of things for all those who share the keenness to retrieve and rescue the Muslims from the mess they are currently in. Islam in its incipient form rested itself on the fulcrum of rationality and reason. Pragmatism informed and inspired the earliest Islamic thinkers and philosophers. Learning was seen as a process of thinking and reasoning rather than historically frozen corpus of juristic rulings.  Muslim scientists pioneered empiricism and imparted to science the elements of observation, measurement and monitoring which continue to form the basis of all scientific studies to this day.


The phenomenal contributions of Muslims to humanities and natural sciences between 8th and 12th century stemmed from the spirit of enquiry triggered by Islam.  Later, the Muslim thinking got fossilized. Shariat became a fixed word and still later a fixation with Muslims.  What was meant to define morality and righteousness in a particular context of age and society, came to be construed as Islamic law. It began to symbolize the periphery where thinking stopped and conformity began.  It acquired the shade of modern nationalism which preaches ‘My nation first, right or wrong’.  Unfortunately and ironically, the modern Islamic theorists who condemned nationalism, felt no qualms in adopting the ‘Islamic state’ as the modern ideal for Muslim ummah. Given a puritanical and romantic halo, this propels much of the Islamic fundamentalist thought today.


Today ill-informed clerics have jumped onto this bandwagon and thoughtlessly peddle concepts that are totally out of the sync with our times and societies we live in.  Qur’anic term taqwa is invariably interpreted as ‘fear of God’ rather than ‘consciousness of God.’  Hijab is more a form (burqa, chador, headscarf et al) and a tool to exclude the women from the society, than the concept of modesty.  Islamic acculturation most often takes the form of Arabization and translates into bulldozing the cultural diversity of Muslim multitudes into monotonous uniformity. Secularism is misconstrued as opposite of sacred rather than antithesis of chauvinism and fanaticism. Talk of religious syncretism and inter-religious imagination is a taboo and borders with heresy. Preoccupation with dos and don’ts totally smothers the spirit of enquiry and stifles creative imagination.


Unless the Muslims unshackle their minds with these obsessions and paranoid mindset, the empowerment of the community would be a dream. Blaming others for our plight does not help. The ummah should overcome its inhibitions and think anew.

Most people would say late late Abdul Karim Parikh was an Aalim i.e., Islamic scholar. He was not.


His forte lay in practicing Qur’an and Islam in 20th century India. In that sense he was a pragmatist of high order. Yet in popular parlance, he was mostly referred as Maulana Abdul Karim Parikh mainly because his speeches and even across-the-table conversations were laced amply with the verses of the Qur’an.


Parikh was essentially a product of latter part of the 20th century when India rose as a plural and secular democracy. Conscious of the fractious legacy of partition and the obligatory nature of the call of Islam for dawah, Maulana Parikh launched his mission of interpreting the Holy Qur’an for the man in the street and the Hindu compatriots. He broke bread with the staunchest of Hindutva zealots and enjoyed the company of the Jain Munis, be they swetambars, pitambars or digambars.  Endowed wonderfully with the knowledge of diversity of India’s religions and cultures, Maulana Parikh immaculately avoided the one-upmanship style of modern televangelists who brook no opportunity of running down other faiths. 


A businessman of high integrity, Maulana Parikh was a self-made missionary of Islam who contented himself merely with drawing analogies between religions and comparing the positive values in each of them. In private conversations, he would make mild chastisement of efforts to politicize the religion and counseled toning down of rhetoric by the clerics. He found comfort among men of faith but fully knew the value of men in power and their capacity to defuse the wounds caused by the highhandedness of religious extremists.  He tried his best to pull off an amicable solution to the contentious Babri Masjid – Ramjanambhoomi issue using his camaraderie with the then Andhra Pradesh Governor Krishan Kant, a key interlocutor with the Sangh Parivar (Kant later became vice president of the republic) but failed in persuading other members of the Babri Masjid Action Committee.  His disdain for fake godmen, religious gimmickry and chicanery was as well known as his love and respect for all genuine men of integrity across religious spectrum.


Though in scholastic circles, he would be less credited for his literary or Islamic credentials, his study of popular beliefs, Indian society and political cross currents underneath the society as profound and definitely not the cup of tea for a common maulvi - hence, his advice to Islamists against taking aggressive postures.  A man of frugal habits and high piety in his individual life, Maulana Parikh’s life was a constant struggle against chauvinism of all variants.  No wonder, even Government of India chose to honour him with Padam Shri. In his death, we Indians have lost a real spiritual guide.