34 years have passed since the Dystopian Oceania of ‘1984’,by George Orwell, and another 34 years more since the constitution of India, that ensures equal rights for its citizen irrespective of caste, creed and religion, came into effect. But the big brother is still watching and persecuting you, not Ingsocian this time, but ruthlessly Islamophobic.

Islamophobia, with its high epidemicity, has spread alarmingly across the globe, thanks to the biased and purported media coverage against Muslims, often controlled by the anti Muslim regimes. Witch-hunt against Islamic propagators here is no longer anyone’s figment of imagination, but a crystal clear fact as evident in the case and arrest of M M Akbar, a well known Islamic Preacher and an educationist in Kerala. This is an era of post truth, and the people don’t even hesitate to believe in things such as ‘love jihad’ which is an obvious oxymoron, and the latest and perhaps the biggest in that series is the news, we see and hear with some incongruous prefixes like ‘’communalist’’ or ‘’extremist’’ given to MM Akbar.

The MM Akbar, we know

M M Akbar, the popular Islamic Preacher, orator and a writer of as many as 50 books, started off his public appearance through the platforms of Msf and MSM, students wing of Indian Union Muslim League and Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen respectively. He used to write articles for periodicals like ‘Shabab’ and ‘Prabodhanam’ during his school days . In the 1980s, Markaz ul Bishara, a Christian institution with an aim of ‘converting Muslims to Christianity’ was moved to Manjeri, and orchestrated an elaborate missionary work among Muslims. M M Akbar, the school boy then, too received some pamphlet and books, distributed by Bishara that questions Islamic faith and its prophet. This prompted M M Akbar, to go through The Bible and to pursue a comparative study between The Quran and The Bible, and went on to become an expert in the field as manifested in his many successful debates with various Christian missionaries in later years.

When rationalist ‘preachers’ intensified their ‘proselytizing’ campaign among Muslims in Malappuram district, M M Akbar ventured out with a mission of defending their allegations on Islam, and thus debunking atheism. Later he wrote a book, named ‘Authenticity of Quran’, which was a thumping reply to the rationalist leader Joseph Edamaruk’s superficially constructed criticisms of the Holy Quran.In early 90s, when there were deliberate attempts from certain quarters to saffronise the history of India, he was all at his intellectual best in leading MSM to a relentless campaign that would awaken the secular-democratic common sense against cultural fascists ,by conducting many seminars and symposiums.

On the aftermath of Babari Masjid demolition, the darkest day of Indian democracy, we began to see some extreme factors sprouting across Kerala, calling for a guerilla defense against Sangh Parivar. Again, he was the front-runner of a campaign organized by Mujahid Youths, named ‘Islam is against extremism’. This campaign incontrovertibly, has played a pivotal role in stopping the Muslim youths from getting radicalized. In the last decade, once again he had to confront with the insidious extremist elements within the community, this time more sophisticated than that once was. He resorted to an open ideological war against those who misinterpret quranic terms Such as ‘jihad’ to attain their political and material benefits. As expected,another book came to light, as erudite as ever, in the name ‘Jihad-sahanavum samaravum’ which not only deals with and refutes the misrepresentations of Jihad, but acts as a foolproof vaccination for Muslim youths from radical thoughts.

His public lectures followed by open questions, started in 1998, was a revolution in the milieu of religious discourses in Kerala. A new culture of questioning & seeking of truth evolved. People of different communities desperately waited for the next program and when it came off, they thronged in numbers. People from other faiths were frank enough to testify their grave misunderstanding about Islam and Quran. ‘‘Such programs must go on’’! The voices of people from different communities reverberated in those venues once such programs were over.There were occasional agitated questioners too. Having got the mic in their hands, they start criticizing Islam and at times, abusing him personally. Once the man stops, M M Akbar , as unflinching as ever, with his fire extinguishing smile, stands up and addresses him ‘dear brother’, and goes on to answer the question in a cool, calm collected way. Once the audience, begins to clap for some of his brilliant rebuttals, a sobering face surrogates the smile, and then warns,
“This is not a duet, this is an intellectual exercise where we get to learn and let learn.”
He also had many debates with the prominent personalities of different religion and ideologies. Can you imagine two political parties, peacefully conducting a debate for a whole day in public? Believe it or not, MM Akbar has conducted and took part in a debate with VHP and RSS leaders, in utmost peaceful premise. Should the Sangh Parivar, who conspire to send M M Akbar behind the bars, really be contemplating on their own leaders for being a complicit?

What is that fuss about class 3 text?

In the Class 3 textbook of ‘religious studies’ (madrasa), contained a reference to Shahada – a declaration for Muslims affirming belief in the oneness of god and acceptance of Muhammad as god’s prophet. The same lesson about shahada, has been, and is always an integral part of all madrasa books of different groups of Muslim community, as it is one of the basic principle of Islam. Unlike other traditional madrasa textbooks which directly teaches shahada, Peace School, and this book prefer activity based learning, for which the wrong choices are deliberately given and checks whether the student has the wrong concept, to correct him accordingly. It was embarrassing that many had their eyebrows raised towards the wrong choices as if the curriculum directs them to opt for that option. How absurd it will be, if someone flays a portion of a lesson that teaches ‘how to prevent fire spreading’ contains a wrong choice like ‘pouring kerosene into the fire’? Since the school authorities thought that the lesson was not age- appropriate and too incomprehensible for that tender age, they had already decided not to teach it, and the teacher’s manual had already given the direction. And this is a ‘madrassa hour’, we are talking about, which is meant for Muslim students only.
Now, turn the clock back to the nineties. We were all Government/Aided school students, studying books published by Kerala Education department. What all were we learning?The biography of Swami Vivekananda, in which a certain part glorifies him for his rebuttals against those who don’t believe in idol worship!Yes, the rebuttal, presented with a tinge of ‘troll’, would hurt many Muslim students’ sentiments as it did to me. And we had “passing of Bhishma” as well, in which we ‘students’ are supposed to ‘enjoy’ the ‘ferocious battle’ between the blood relatives!. And the last but not least,’the Mathamillaatha Jeevan’ ,taught in primary classes, an obvious effort of indoctrination by the Marxist Minister. Mind you, these were not portions from a Hindu ‘Madrasa’,nor a ‘Balangham’ study class, but from a government school syllabus. Will the police ,who indefatigably rummaged all the Peace School books , and found out the ‘grave offences’ like, Prophet Ibrahim’s story or the belief in hereafter, look into these matters as well?. Hounding of M. M Akbar had begun, long before the textbook came into discussion and he was questioned by high officials of police department. There was also a deliberate attempt to connect him with IS. One can’t be blamed, if he conjures up a “wolf and lamb’’ story in this issue, in which wolf looking for excuses to kill the lamb although lamb unequivocally disproves wolf’s allegations.

Islamic propagation-a constitutional right
Fundamental rights specified under article 25-28, not only guarantee its citizen the right to profess, practice and propagate religion, but also grant the right to manage affairs in the matter of religion. Still, the Islamophobic media has found a way to establish a commonsense such that, the preaching of Islam, and the peoples’ conversion to it’, is as an act of extremism. Actually, the freedom of religion was not a new right granted by the constitution for those who lived here, but it always had existed for more than a thousand years. Propagation of a certain faith, accepting it upon one’s own will was always there in the history of our country. The biased media marauders, who vilify Islamic propagation and its preachers, are clever enough to forget it conveniently, and unleash a set of canards as though there hadn’t been conversions in the past.

Dr BR Ambedkar, the principle architect of our constitution, had converted to Buddhism along with many of his followers,and so was the emperor Asoka. In Kerala, we have Adi Shankara and Hermann Gundert,two celebrated historical figures of Kerala, who propagated their religion openly and travelled across the country, to convert people to their faith. Off late, the Islamophobic media and the sangh parivar idealists are seen playing semantic jugglery with the words ‘conversion,convert,and freedom of religion to abolish this fundamental right of the citizen.

Divided by vendetta, united by islamophobia
The Sangh Parivars and the Marxists have been at loggerheads for many decades, in Kerala, literally making its northern district kannur a bloody battlefield. Nothing is there, that can join them together, or make them work harmoniously for a single cause, except one thing, that is islamophobia. Last few months, we have witnessed an inexplicable rapport between both and their unscrupulous collusion in recent issues where Muslims were unfairly targeted. The indubitable presence of sangh parivar supporters in the police and public prosecutors has dismissed all the secular credentials LDF once boasted off. It’s highly condemnable that the CPM, which blabber about protecting minorities, is pandering to RSS, in their Islamophobic crusade, as we saw in their daring exuberance in tarnishing, vilifying and finally arresting M M Akbar, a highly respected Islamic intellectual in Kerala with a scrupulous profile.It is high time, the communist party stop running with the hare and hunting with the hound and they should understand that playing to the tune of hindutva sentiments will eventually create a majoritarian common sense, that sooner than later, would find a better substitute in BJP.

Finally, We have one word ; Big brother, you had better stop watching us, as we will remain unfazed ever as long as we have the Holy Quran in one hand, and the Indian Constitution in the other, as exemplified by Great Moulana Azad, the leader of Indian Independence movement and a great ‘salafi scholar’ in his illustrious life span.

Muhammad INK