One of the most repeated questions that is being asked these days is….if indeed  there is such a thing as moderate/liberal muslims, why is it that they are so silent…why has a single voice not been raised against the fatwa of this and this maulvi, why has no muslim not objected to M.F.Hussain’s depiction of  the Hindu goddesses and so on .

       To a certain extent , it is true that the moderate muslims are not as vociferous as the cantankerous lot, who unfortunately have come to be seen as the representative face of the community. To a large extent , however , there is propaganda involved. A certain  myth is put across as the truth and  repeated ad-nauseum,until it begins to take on the appearance of truth. The “Hum chaar, humara pachis” , remark, alluding to the myth that the muslim population will soon increase to become the majority population, because of each muslim man having four wives, who between them will have twenty five children, is an example.  Yes, there will be some men, who will have misused this provision in islam, for their own selfish ends, a provision which was allowed only in the context of the times when the religion was still nascent and the many wars had produced widows on a large scale. But, seriously, how many of them are there around you? In these times, when it is so difficult to maintain a small nuclear family, is this a common phenomenon? How many muslim men , whom you personally know , have four wives? One may cry oneself hoarse trying to point out that it is only amongst the poor and the illiterate, across the board, that family planning is not being adopted, but it will hardly make a dent. I have been involved , for the past several years  , with an NGO, working in a locality of migrant labourers from several states , Bihar, Rajasthan, villages of U.P and West Bengal. I can categorically state , that most of these families , predominantly Hindus, have four or five children each. Kerala is a state where literacy levels are high. Even in the state of Malappuram, a predominantly muslim district, the norm at present, is to have few children. But then in Kerala, the health schemes and family planning programmes are well in place and actively implemented.

      Very often , one has come across e-mails doing the rounds , which seek to establish that the Koran justifies and even recommends violence and killing in order to justify the establishment of the religion. For e.g , there was one, which one came across on one of the blogs on this Iland as well, linking the 9/11 to a Surah(verse ) in the Koran  of the same number, which talked of an eagle  or something like that , which it was implied, metaphorically alluded to the plane that crashed into the twin towers. Out of curiosity, I checked in a copy of the Koran, I have with me , to find out if that was indeed so. The said verse was something totally different. But who cares to check for facts? For those already inclined to think the worst of an individual or group or community , something supporting a view that has been crystallized in their minds , is welcome. The accused , I guess (and I am talking of the moderate muslims) feel too miserable and defensive to argue about it.

       It would be quite a transgression of facts if one were to say that terrorism is not being resorted to. There is a fundamentalist group, quite well supported financially  by the oil –rich sheikdoms, who have been resorting to violence. No right thinking muslim supports them or their actions. But somehow, their voices are not being heard in all this cacophony. The media too, has a certain role to play as the tendency is only to highlight the utterings of  uneducated mullahs, no matter how obscure their position amongst the people they are supposed to represent.

     It would also be foolish to try and establish, that islam, as it presents itself today, requires no re-thinking at all. Of course it does, as the community has been disinclined to review certain aspects, which has very little relevance today. This  is  particularly true of the  way women of this community are treated in most of the countries that  follow islam as a state religion . There is a positive trend, slowly picking up momentum, in different parts of the world, where women are beginning to speak up. It has also been reported that in Turkey, the Government , has set up a team of theologians in the Ankara University to review the Hadith, on which the shariah laws are mostly based. These initiatives  augur well for the community.

You can read more about this  on  the following link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7264903.stm

      All these ramblings have been prompted by the film, “Khuda Ke Liye”, the first film of  Shoaib Mansoor, a Pakistani, who has produced and directed the film. It is a well made film, depicting sensitively and without being loud, the different shades of people , who now come under the name “Muslims”. The story is centred around a well to do family in Pakistan, the two sons pursuing music as their passion and profession, one of whom gets drawn into fundamentalism , without actually being able to come to terms with the aggressiveness it preaches. The other, who opts to go to America to study Music, gets tortured in the wake of the bombings of the twin towers,only because he belongs to a certain community .It is as much about how the fundamentalists subvert the messages of the Koran , with their interpretations , pitting everyone outside the faith as enemies and about how successfully they have been able to wean away youth and indoctrinate them, as much as it is about racial profiling , particularly after September 11^th.  The film is also about the internal struggle within the muslim community ,between the peace loving , broadminded muslims and those who have now given a repulsive connotation to the concept of jehad.

      A number of issues are raised  in the story…the different interpretations of the Koran, Islam’s take on music , the rights of a woman in the matter of marriage and so on. If nothing else,the film is remarkable for the fact that it is an attempt to show the viewers that besides the Al Khaida and Osama Bin Laden,  there are other voices , waiting to be heard.