COVID-19: Tabligivirus And Communalism

Er. Adil Hussain Rather
“O Mankind, We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other. Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous of you” (Quran 49:13).The prominent Deobandi scholar Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi (1885-1944) launched Tablighi Jamaat in 1927 in Mewat, India, not far from Delhi. For the past two or three days, this group has been most widely discussed. Its aim was to spread “true” Islam among the “Umma” (Global Muslimcommunity). Many Muslims at the time felt that their political and religious identities were being compromised under the British Raj. The organization flourished in what was then undivided India. This did not change when the country was partitioned after independence in 1947.The Jamaat’s founder, Mohammed Ilyas, once famously said, “Oh Muslims be good Muslims” and that is in essence, the organization’s main objective to promote the ideals of Islam among Muslims. The first ameer was Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi, later succeeded by his son Maulana Muhammad Yusuf Kandhalawi and then by Maulana Inaam ul Hasan. During sometime in 1992, 3 years before the time of his demise, Maulana Inaamul Hasan, formed a 10-member Shura (committee) to appoint an ameer. This 10 member shura committee consisted of Maulana Saeed Ahmed Khan Sb, Mufti Zainul Abideen, Maulana Umar sb palanpuri, Maulana Izhar ul Hasan, Maulana Zubair ul hasan, Miyaji Mehraab sb, Haji Abdul Wahab Sb, Haji engineer Abdul Muqeet sb, Haji Afzal sb and Muhammad Saad Kandhlawi. The teachings of Tabligh Jamaat are expressed in “Six Principles” Kalmia (Declaration of faith), Salah (Prayer), Ilm-o-zikr (Knowledge), Ikraam-e-Muslim (Respect of muslim), Ikhlas-e-Niyyat (Sincerity of intention), Dawat-o-Tableegh (Proselytizaton). They visit a village or neighborhood, invites the local Muslims to assemble in the mosque and present their message in the form of above Six Attributes. Each year they have religious gathering at their Markaz.The society is an Islamic missionary movement that focuses to exhort Muslims and encourage fellow members to return to practising their religion as it was practised during the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammadphn, and particularly in matters of ritual, dress and personal behavior. The organization is estimated to have between 12 million to 80 million followers worldwide, with the majority living in South Asia, and a presence in somewhere between 180 and 200 countries. It has been deemed as one of the most influential religious movements in 20th century Islam. These gatherings are considered moments of intense blessings by Tabligh Jamaat members and are known to attract members in excess of 2 million in some countries. In 2018 there was an ijtema in Aurangabad in India which changed the whole scenario of tablighi with minimum attendance of 4 million people gather from around the world under the patronage of Maulana Saadkhandalwi ameer tablighi jamaat of nizamuddin markaz. And in 2020 on March 22, authorities shut its doors with about 2,500 worshippers still inside after it emerged that a religious gathering organised by the group on March 13-15 caused the biggest coronavirus spike in India.Of about 4,400 COVID-19 positive cases in India, nearly a third are related to the religious gathering at the Markaz, as the Jamaat headquarters is known. The government claimed more than 8,000 people, including foreigners, visited the headquarters in early March. While accusing the Jamaat leadership of “carelessness” during a global pandemic, experts and civil society members also blamed the central government for its delayed response and allowing foreigners, particularly those coming from COVID-19 hotspot nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia, into India. The authorities logged FIR against the tabighi jamaat. The FIR states that the Jamaat, including Tablighi chief Mohammad Saad, flouted all directions by the government, did not take safety precautions and risked the health of the participants as well as the general public by exposing them to a highly infectious disease. The sections were added because first, Saad did not inform the health department or any other agency about the huge gathering, despite several notices to him. Also, he and others named in the FIR caused a situation where in a highly infectious disease spread and threatened the life of inmates and general public at large,” a police source said.
We need, for the redemption of the world, more than altruism, noble as that is. We may learn unselfishness, sacrifice, self-surrender, but we do not stand established in the One, until we can say: “There are no others; it is my Self in all”. When all man say this, the world will have its Golden Age: when one man says it in life, his presence is a benediction wherever he goes. We are brothers, but more than brothers.
The cleric and six others have also been booked under sections of the Epidemic Diseases Act, Disaster Management Act, and five other sections of the IPC, including criminal conspiracy. But There was no screening even when there were reports that some people with a history of travel to the Markaz had tested positive. Either the mistake was from authority or from the markaz head. So with this concern the media took this propaganda as a tabligi virus and take this pandemic into communalism. There are so many chapters of tabligi jamaat and the pandemic virus on social as well as on print media that it seems like war has begin against the tabligi jamaat. The media channels have highlighted this issue like the spark burns the house. It created lot of difference between the Hindu Muslim brotherhood .It is unfortunate that people are calling it a conspiracy and using terms like Corona Jihad. The group was vilified by the mainstream media for its “carelessness”, and the country’s 200 million Muslims were blamed for spreading the virus that has killed more than 70,000 people worldwide. One tweets with Corona Jihad appeared nearly 300,000 times and were potentially seen by 165 million people since March 28. The terms like corona terrorism, talibani crime has been used by the ruling party of center also . If we talkabout South Asia to denote attempts to promote primarily religious stereotypes between groups of people identified as different communities and to stimulate violence between those groups. In contemporary India, “communalism” designates not only the conflicts between extremist religious communities, but also those between peoples of the same religion but from different regions and states.This virus is for whole world and we can can’t give it name on bases religious, cast ,kinship, tribe, urban/structural, location , social status, wealth and profession. It’s not time to flex our muscles with slogans of hatred but in place of this we can join hands to each other and make free coronavirus country. Near about 200 hundred countries are facing the worst conditions of such pandemics. There is but one sun, and every energy on our earth is but some form of solar force; as one sun feeds the whole earth, so one Self shines in every heart. There is only one blasphemy the denial of God in man. There is only one heresy the heresy of separateness, which says: “I am other than thou, we are not one.” We need, for the redemption of the world, more than altruism, noble as that is. We may learn unselfishness, sacrifice, self-surrender, but we do not stand established in the One, until we can say: “There are no others; it is my Self in all”. When all man say this, the world will have its Golden Age: when one man says it in life, his presence is a benediction wherever he goes. We are brothers, but more than brothers. Brothers have only a common father; we have a common Self. In all around us, then, let us see the Glory of the Self, and let us remember that to deny the Self in the lowest, is to deny it in ourselves and in God.
(The author is a freelancer. Views are his own, [email protected])