Religious values, modernity and crimes

Just imagine nobody in Bangladesh believes in any religion. "Not to follow a religion", let us suppose, has become a new culture in Bangladesh. People are considering a faith that is not compatible with science or modernity, not a religion. Those who fear God are being viewed as timid people foolishly yielding to fatalism. People, the old and the young alike, are loath to go to mosques, temples or churches. People are no more believing in the afterworld; they think that a world after death is a fiction weaved ages back by kings with an intention only to govern the subjects. And, there has been huge recruitment of law enforcers, say, one policeman for every fifty citizens in Bangladesh because according to new cultures, "laws and their enforcements are the only means to ensure social harmony and control crimes". What will happen in such a scenario hypothesized in the above paragraph? Even an atheist, if he is asked to be honest, would perhaps answer: Bangladesh would then become a hell with its whole population turned into pathological killers, dacoits, rapists, incestuous criminals indulging in passions that pop up from Oedipus and Electra complexes, and notorious criminals doing crimes never heard of in the past. One may now ask, why then there are so many crimes in Bangladesh where people are basically very religious. Who does say people in Bangladesh are religious? Genuine religious practice, especially practicing true Islam, is nearly absent today in Bangladesh. Of course, there are still families in Bangladesh who practice religion, there are still good people in our society who truly fear our creator, the Providence, whom we the Muslims call Allah, the Hindus, Bhagaban, and the Christians, God. Thanks to our religiosity, though diminishing alarmingly, we are not still witnessing thousands of murders taking place in Bangladesh every single day. Religion thwarts crimes to the tune of 98 per cent and the law merely 2.0 per cent. A modicum of peace and harmony that is still there in our societies has been possible only due to our fear of God and due to our firm belief in rewards and punishments in the other world. Fear of God has advanced civility until the early part of the last century and the newest trend of disbelieving God and the afterworld has been dragging us back to incivility. With religion no more influencing us to mould our character, with God-fearing people greatly dwindling, we are teetering on the brink of ruination. There is in the western world, and now by a contagion of political extremism also in Bangladesh, a new intellectualism of terming truly devout Muslims as Islamists, implying terrorists, and terming cosmetic followers of Islam as moderate Muslims, implying people who feel shy to identify themselves with Islam. Wearing non-Muslim costumes, calling children by non-Muslim names, branding Muslims who perfectly follow the tenets of Islam as fanatics, portraying good Muslims as orthodox Mullahs, shying away from referring Islamic lessons in political and intellectual deliberations are now new fashions in Bangladesh. The result: everyday as we open the newspaper we read news of murders, rapes, acid-throwing, arsons, looting and crimes of all shades and colors. The recent incidents in Bangladesh of young men stalking, attacking and killing young women mostly out of vengeance should stir our conscience. We must find out why our women folks should be so easy prey for rogue men. We must find out why our men are becoming so beastly. It is high time to think that "Law alone cannot remedy this malady". Our spiritual conscience needs to be reinvigorated and our fear of God reinforced. According reports published in newspapers, Hena died from beating prescribed by a so-called fatwa, Tumpa was recently kidnapped and killed by the same gang who a few months back killed her brother Babla for the reason that he once slapped a member of the same gang for their stalking his sister Tumpa. A female 28-year old school teacher named Arifa Khatun was chopped to death inside her classroom at Vainapara of Santhia upazila in Pabna on 27 February. During a conference held in Dhaka last Saturday, the executive director of Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) informed the participants that the country saw about 2,466 incidents of acid violence in the last 11 years, injuring some 3,135 people. Almost all the victims were women who had fallen prey to the greed of their husbands for dowry or to wayward men's lust for sex. When one after another woman were becoming victims at the hands of the unruly and in some instances by dictums in the name of fatwa issued by uneducated and prejudiced mullahs, the High Court had to give a decision on fatwa with a good intention to prohibit local arbitrators from issuing fatwa that might perhaps unjustly award extreme punishments on flimsy and unfounded grounds. Fazlul Huq Amini of Islami Oikkyo Jote claimed: "No court can ban Fatwa". At the same time, Amini said he also did not agree with the activities of local arbitrations prescribing inhuman beatings that led to Hena's death. So, Amini may be right (or wrong) in his claim on court's jurisdiction over fatwa and, given that local arbitrations were wrong, the High Court was also right in apprehending the misuse of fatwa. Now the question arises who should be entrusted with the job of issuing right fatwa. If we dig deep into the background of the mullah who as his fatwa issued order to inflict Hena with merciless beatings that caused her death I am sure we will find that he was not well-groomed by his parents or by his teachers. In accordance with our social practice, if I have two sons I would send my meritorious son to a high school to learn modern science and send the less meritorious one to a Madrasha to learn lessons of Islam and become an Imam or an opinion leader. As a tragic corollary, the Imams and the local mullahs in our country have not been properly enlightened by the true spirit and lessons of Islam. The problem with our practicing Islam in today's world, as also in Bangladesh, is our blind emulations of Islamic practices without taking cognizance of the spirit of this great religion, the best religion since the dawn of civilization. Many so-called scholars miserably failed to present to us the real beauty of Islam; they are afraid of deviating a micro millimeter from the way our prophets led their living ages back. They don't take into consideration the prophecies our last prophet (PBUH) gave as to how we should adapt and lead our life with the change of time. Wearing a turban was and still is a necessity in a desert in the Arab world. Journeying by camels was and still is convenient in a desert. Taking dates was and still is very healthful in a desert. So, our prophets who were born in the Arab world had followed what were convenient at their time in the past. They wore turbans, traveled on the back of camels and ate dates as their staples. If we don't follow in Bangladesh what the Arabian Muslims followed in the Arab world, if we don't eat what our prophets ate, our practice should not be considered a deviance from Islam. If law of our land does not ban taking photographs or viewing television, such law should also not be considered a deviation from the Islamic law that was prescribed one thousand and five hundred years back when there was no camera, let alone a television. During Ramadan, we keep fasting from the moment the sun rises in the east until the moment the sun sets in the west. But, in a polar zone---where the sun sets six months after it rises---if a Muslim living in such a polar region keeps fasting by calculating hours in his clock his practice should not be considered a deviance from what our last prophet prescribed for our fasting. Not only uneducated mullahs are responsible for tarnishing the image of Islam. Our country is also infested with some so-called intellectuals, who think following a religion is the very antithesis of what the society needs. If you ask in today's Bangladesh, a Muslim mother, who deems herself modern, what name she would choose for her newborn girl, she would love to pick a name like "Anannya" or "Krishna" and may laugh on the other side of her face if another Muslim mother chooses "Khadiza" as her newborn daughter's name. I know a male Muslim friend of mine in Bangladesh who mutilated his last name by distorting the correct spelling of "Ali" into "Aly", which coincidentally is a female name in English. I have a Hindu friend who defying his religious customs voraciously eats beefs, a diet that is debarred in Hindu religion; he also passes derogatory remarks about his own religion saying that Hinduism is not a religion, it is a myth. I have a Christian friend who always praises, at least when I am before him, the beauties of Islam, especially Islam's contribution in emancipating slaves and women long before the western civilization had realized the anathemas of discriminations on the grounds of colour, race, gender, and social orientation. The holy Quran, we should remember, is not only for Muslims; it is a divine book for the whole mankind. The holy Quran is the only divine book where we find teachings of not to dishonor followers of other faiths and religions, especially who believe in oneness of God. Islam is perhaps the only religion in the world which teaches the followers to be patient and to not torture or kill even the enemies in the battlefield who are unarmed. Islam is the religion which has banned homicide and suicide. But, what are we watching now? In the name of Jihad, so-called Muslim youths, indoctrinated by those uncouth mullahs delivering false fatwa, are so much hallucinated by their blind and wrong faiths that they go for suicide missions to kill civilians, thinking their death would be considered martyrdom. The main point is intention. If I cock my gun, aim at an attacking tiger and press the trigger with an intention to kill the tiger I am not a sinner, according to Islam, if the bullet veers and kills a man. But I would verily be a sinner if I aim to kill a man, but by an accident my bullet instead of killing the man kills a tiger. Islam has taught us to keep pace with modernity. Islam has urged us to go as far away as possible in quest of education. During a recent religious function in Washington on the occasion of Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi, the holy birthday of our last prophet (PBUH), where Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a prominent leader of the Naqshabandi Sufi Tariqah was the chief guest, I was a little perplexed to find the congregated Muslims in a spree of beating drums while singing naaths and rhymes in praise of Allah and Rasul. At the end of the function I enquired to Mahbub Khan, a devoted follower of Sufism, why so much drum-beating and singing in an Islamic function. "Isn't music prohibited in Islam?" I asked. An engineering graduate and a Masters in Education (Mathematics) now residing in California, Mahbub Khan is very fond of classical music. Mahbub Khan explained: "There is no consensus on the issue of music in Islam. Some jurists consider it a "slippery stone" and relegated it to the arena of prohibition since it has the potential to stir one's heart to a direction not intended by Islam. There is no Qur'anic verse prohibiting music. On the other hand there are quite a few prophetic narrations where Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) encouraged music, especially drums". "Islam is a religion of moderation", Mahbub Khan, a deep thinker on Sufism, reminded me. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: "Every religion has a distinguishing mark. The distinguishing mark of Islam is moderation". The writer can be reached at e-mail : maswood@hotmail.com