Babri Masjid Verdict: From Myths to Facts
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
In my article “A Verdict of Profound Consequence” in Pakistan Link (Aug 15, 2010) on the earlier Babri Mosque verdict, I had emphasized the political nature of justice today.
According to the final judgement just announced, the land on which Babri Masjid stood for 400 years and which was demolished in 1992, has been given to the Hindus. They have also been given the right to build the Ram Temple on it. Muslims have been given five acres of land in Ayodhya for their Mosque.
In earlier days, the justice system we tried to establish in this world was based on the interests of kings and their clique and was devoid of the due process of law. The justice which we are trying to establish today in democratic setups is based upon political realities after the due process. It should be clear now as to why it took us 72 years to make this decision after the dispute first started with the mysterious appearance of the idols of Sri Ramchandarji in the mosque in 1948, soon after India gained independence. We were creating and waiting for the politically correct environment. A law that can’t be enforced only creates chaos in society and adds another layer to establishment at great cost to taxpayers without any benefit, as we see with so many such laws.
Even though this decision is made now in the name of the Supreme Court, it was made in the eighties by those who were working for the goal of the Mandir in 1980s in consultation with Muslim leadership. Implementation of this decision was kept in abeyance because the situation was not politically ripe and could not be implemented with coalition governments that were ruling India from 1977 to 2014. Now when the Modi government appears to be in full control of the destiny of India during its second term, the secular forces are in disarray, the situation of Muslims in the world is pathetic, and so the government seeing no political challenge to its decision, gave the nod to the Supreme Court to make this announcement.
Maulana Abdul Kareem Parikh was a timber merchant but he was well versed in religion and decidedly better than many scholars. As he lived in Nagpur he had good contacts with the RSS leadership and created a lot of goodwill for himself and his movement of Qur’an learning. His dictionary of Qur’anic terms “Lughathul Qur’an” opened the doors of understanding of the Qur’an without the help of translation and I also benefitted from it. It has since been translated into many national and international languages.
Because of his religiosity and links with RSS leadership, Maulana Ali Miyan, President of Majlis e Mushawirath, made Maulana Parikh his representative to negotiate a solution to the problem of this Masjid- Mandir issue with the Shankracharya. Before my migration to America (I think it was in 1989), he told me that after his recent meeting with Shankracharya he was assured that if the Muslims agree to the building of the temple in lieu of an alternate piece of land for a mosque, Hindus will give up their claim on some other places of worship that was on the agenda of VHP. He expressed disappointment at the state of Muslim leaders steeped in emotions, jealousies and egos who did not heed sane solutions negotiated on their behalf.
After my arrival in America when I saw fresh moves to rake up the Mandir-Masjid issue, I wrote to some influential Muslim leaders and religious institutions in India asking them to accept the solution negotiated by Maulana Abdul Kareem Parikh to avoid further political turmoil. I asked them to persuade the person who had filed this case to withdraw it to facilitate the construction of the Mandir instead of giving permission for its construction for which there was great reluctance in the community. I had given the opinion of some of the Early Muslim jurists who had given the edict that prayer on a disputed land acquired by conquest is not valid. I told them that it is better for Muslims to pray on a land which is not disputed rather than keep this problem alive to the detriment of Muslims of India. I had also argued in that letter that by withdrawing the case they will create an atmosphere of goodwill and foreclose the possibility of raking up problems on other sites of worship where dispute is being synthesized. I was sad to learn from Dr Muzammil Siddiqi after his return from Bhatkal in India that the scholars who had accepted to cede the claim over the Masjid were chastised in the religious gatherings which he went to attend in 2018.
Maulana Siraj Ul Hasan, a longtime leader of Jamaat e Islami, regularly watched episodes from Ramayana and Mahabharatha when they were screened by Door Darshan some decades ago. This he did to understand the Indian psyche which Muslim scholars had ignored for long to their disadvantage. He told me: Sri Valmiki, who is the author of the original Ramayana, was the Nietzsche of his time which is prehistoric, and Sri Ramchadar Ji was his ideal man. He used to lament that if only the Muslims had kept the message of Nabi SA pure and lived according to it the Hindus would have seen the reality of Sri Ramchandarji in the life of Nabi SA and this Mandir-Masjid issue would not have arisen.
In the psyche of Hindus, Babur and his progeny are brutal rulers who did a lot of wrong. But no one can deny the fact that it was his descendent Aurangzeb who created Vishal Bharath once more after Chandra Gupta. The advent of Mughal rule brought vibrancy to the static Indian life and enriched its art and culture. It was difficult for me to believe in the demonic character of Aurangzeb which I had read in the curriculum in my high school days. The guide at his tomb in Aurangabad testified to his fine character when I visited Aurangzeb’s tomb as a tourist in 1977. He said: Aurangzeb did not take any stipend from the State and lived on the income he got from stitching caps and writing the Holy Qur’an in spare time. His grave was a heap of mud with stones placed on four sides with a head stone in the center. The burial place was given an uplift by the Nizam of Hyderabad who erected screens of carved white marble around it.
Aurangzeb moved his capital from Delhi to Aurangabad in Central India to crush the rebellion that was staged by small rulers in the south. He emulated the example of Ali RA who moved the capital from Medina to Kufa to be close to the center of the place from where a rebellion against the Khilafa was brewing. Aurangzeb succeeded in crushing the rebellion and uniting India into one big nation that was once ruled by Chandragupta. After Aurangzeb, united India fell apart and split into small principalities resulting in its colonization.
The nationalists and secularists are in one voice in condemning the action of Aurangzeb in imprisoning his father in the Agra Fort and killing his brothers. They ignore this achievement of Aurangzeb.
Coming to the judgement and what Muslims in India should do about it now, I have this to say. The Islamic perspective on Justice is that this world is not a place of justice. This is a place for action and we will be judged about our actions and the intentions behind them in the Hereafter. The discomforts we suffer in this world are the consequence of our actions. Muslims know Ehsan in terms of faith as its pinnacle. Ehsan should manifest in our actions and in facing its consequence too. Those who are much motivated by establishing justice ignore Ehsan in actions and think in terms of revenge as a means to establish justice while revenge does not establish justice but begets more revenge. Revenge is the luxury of the strong and not an option for the weak but those who are benefitted by it always incite the weak to revenge on the bait of honor, self-respect and justness of their cause. To avoid this trap Nabi SA trained his companions in a different and higher level above justice - Esar (sacrifice) and Ehsan (excellence).
The teaching of Nabi SA was that peace will not come if our aim is justice because justice is relative. Muslims should rise above the level of illusory justice and sacrifice their interest (Esar) and agree for less than what is their due (Ehsan) in an environment where there is no justice and everyone is indulging in injustice in an effort to establish justice. In an attempt to get what they think is their right they have plunged the world into a cycle of revenge all through history. The reward of heaven for the faithful who believe in the life of the hereafter is not for their effort in taking this revenge but a compensation for living in this world foregoing their rights and living with less than what is their due. Qur’an says that you have a right to revenge but if you forgive and make peace your reward is with Allah and you should know that Allah does not like those who do injustice (Ch42 V40). When Muslims lived by these tenets it gave Islam a moral standing and a fillip all through history.
Judicial verdicts rarely bring peace, harmony and happiness either in personal matters or in matters related to society. For this we will have to rise from the ritual of religion to its reality and from the fables of history to its facts and from emotion to reason.
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