The abyss of religious extremism Premium

To begin with, hadiths and fatwas that violate the letter or spirit of the Koran should be questioned and disregarded

The horrific visuals of burning churches in Faisalabad, Pakistan, that went viral last month reconfirmed the rapid descent of the country into the abyss of religious extremism. At last count, 21 churches, dozens of Christian homes, and hundreds of Bibles had been sacrilegiously torched.

This horrendous barbarity was allegedly perpetrated by the extremist group, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) on the basis of the rumour that torn pages of the Koran with blasphemous words scribbled on them were found near a Christian colony. Shockingly, this disinformation was diffused through mosque speakers.

The situation was redeemed to some extent after several Pakistani clerics mustered the moral courage to condemn the violence. The chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi, in a televised press conference, apologised with folded hands to the Christian community.

He said, “We are ashamed; we seek forgiveness (hum sharminda hain; hum ma’afi ke talabgaar hain).” Another cleric, Mufti Taqi Usmani, called the burning of churches as “highly condemnable (intihaa’i qaabil-e-muzammat).”

The incoming Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Qazi Faez Isa, for his part, sent out a strong message to the biased judiciary of his country by personally distributing food packets to the Christians of the violence-hit Jaranwala tehsil in Faisalabad district. He put the onus on common Muslims to protect non-Muslims and their places of worship from the extremists.

In stark contrast, only a handful of Indian clerics came forward to condemn the church burning — Muhammad Rahmani of the Abul Kalam Azad Islamic Awakening Centre, Waris Mazhari, Abdul Khaliq Nadwi, and Mufti Athar Shamsi of the Kairana-based Al-Quran Academy.

Hardly any Muslim political party, “public intellectual”, or religious organisation barring the Jamat-e-Islami Hind denounced the anti-Christian violence. Their cold aloofness is unreasonable and callous because in 2017, the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind (JUH) had reportedly displayed its humanitarianism by seeking permission from the Home Minister of India and the Bangladesh government to carry relief material to the camps of Rohingya migrants in Cox’s Bazar and even “build a colony for the Rohingya Muslims”.