By IndiaTomorrow.net,
During a social media conference recently, the moderator queried from the audience how many of them had a twitter account. The first to raise his hand was Nusrat Ali, secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, shocking the audience, who always bred an impression that Muslim religious leadership is averse to technology and tools of modernization.
But, what makes people like Ali – a keen engager with social networking sites – adopt and adapt to changing environment? The answer may lie in him being a masters in political science, a former school teacher and holding a bachelor’s degree in education, unlike the general perception that the Muslim leadership consists of ‘madrasa educated’ men, who ‘issue fatwas’ on irrelevant issues like one on birthday celebrations, other on sale of noodles and ketchups while another on sale of fire crackers.
The president of Jamaat Maulana Jalaluddin Omari possesses an English honours degree from prestigious Aligarh Muslim University. Omari is known as a reformer and takes keen interest in engagements with non-Muslims and rights of women. His deliberations are mostly on how to develop good relations with Hindus and other non-Muslims and on how to provide economic freedom to the women, who among the Muslim societies are more marginalized. His books that have been translated in English are “Rights of Muslim Women – A Critique of Objections”, “Muslim Women and Economic Enterprise” and “State of Our Community and Nation and Our Responsibilities” as well as one landmark work on rights of non-Muslims and relationship with them. This work throws light on building social capital between the Hindus and Muslims and others in a plural society like India.
Similar is the profile of other members of the Jamaat, which though pooh-poohs the general perception that Muslim leadership is uneducated and averse to modern education and technologies which have come to occupy the mainstream space owing to their economic superiority.
Mohammad Salim Engineer, Jamaat’s national secretary and member of its most powerful Central Advisory Council, holds a BE (Electronics) and M.Tech degrees and got educated in prestigious IIT Kanpur and Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom. Presently he is an associate professor of electronics engineering in a Jaipur college. So, the Jamaat in its leadership boasts of western educated, English speaking and people who are keen to build relationship for the success of social capital.
H. Abdul Raqeeb, who hails from Vaniyambadi in Tamil Nadu and is a member of the advisory council, has not only published several articles on leather trade and technology but also has widely travelled to UK, US, West Germany, France, Turkey, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Kenya among others. He had also attended International Muslim Business Conference, Istanbul, Turkey and led a delegation to Islamic Bank of Malaysia.
Jamaat’s high-powered advisory council has two alumni of IIT-Kanpur Mohammad Rafat and Salim Engineer and two other engineering graduates Syed Sadatullah Husaini and S. Ameenul Hasan while another member of the council SQR Ilyas boasts of a Ph.D. in Chemistry. But Jamaat also has some key members with high degrees from Islamic seminaries like Jamiatul Falah and Madrasatul Islah, which indicates that the institution successfully strikes a synergy in its leadership – English educated as well as madarsa educated.
But, the pertinent question is: How far have their modern education and adaptation of western technologies changed their outlook towards the burning issues of Muslims and Indian society? To get an answer, their viewpoints will have to be compared with other Muslim organizations and institutions like Jamiat Ulema-e Hind or Darul Uloom Deoband among others. There are host of issues concerning the Muslims on which the Jamaat leadership on one hand and Jamiat leadership and Deoband on the other hold similar or contrary view. The analysis of stand on such issues needs to be further analyzed to come to the conclusion whether the Jamaat leadership stands out or not.
However, Jamaat leadership with their present outlook on some of the current issues is a bit different from other religious leadership of the community. When Narendra Modi announced austerity measures soon after becoming Prime Minister in May this year, Jamaat was the first and only to come out to appreciate the move even while maintaining its differences with Modi and his party BJP on plethora of issues, including the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. Even though their gesture gave them bad coverage in Urdu press which slammed the organization with headlines like “Jamaat pats the back of Modi”, the organization didn’t back down and supported Modi’s Clean India Campaign.
