Liberal Islam of India

                                                          Baab-e-Syed, one of the gates to liberal Islam

On October 16. 2014, I read an article entitled Why India’s Muslims Haven’t Radicalized by Jake Flanagin. This article stood out to me especially because it coincided with the recent ISIS crisis in the middle east and many western Muslims going to join it, Nobel prize for peace to Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai and India's Kailash Satyarthi, which some called dirty western politics, and recent India-Pakistan border conflict. I agreed to a T with the author's views and information. But it lacked a narrative which could justify that Indian Muslims are liberal when media often report of the terrorists, like Daood, which moved out of India and radicals who are involved in religious riots and fatwas.

My first encounter with Islam happened in my childhood. But I consciously experienced it when I went to Aligarh Muslim University to continue my higher education. I faintly remember my inconvenience going there. Upon reaching there, I could not believe that Muslims were no different from me. Muslims had existed as demons in one story about some Aadam temple in a distant place far away from India (I guess it was Meccah) which I often heard from my traditional Brahmin grandfather and as untouchables in the life teachings of my grandma (mother of my father's friend) who professed that one should not allow a Muslim in the house, and if allowed, the mat or the cot should be cleaned properly to maintain piety. I am not sure to this day whether they ever had any first hand experience with Muslims or aware of the ideological implications of the thoughts which they did not practice in their day-to-day life.

When I spent time with Muslims, I realized that I had already had two Muslims in my life. Wonderful Imam Maassaab in my village who taught us in middle school and a friend of my grandfather who, a butcher by profession, often had tea, chat and financial transactions with him in my presence were, in fact, Muslims. When the teacher loved us all, grandpa's friend never greeted him and us with anything but "Ram-Ram" (Hindu greeting with religious overtones).

I witnessed in Aligarh Muslim University that mutual respect existed among Hindu and Muslim colleagues, and love and care among classmates and students and their teachers. There were exceptions, no doubt: some classmates always considered me, a Hindu, in an outsider circle, and one Hindu custodian could never sit on a chair in the presence of other adults. I received unconditional grooming from more than one Muslim teacher, and two of my teachers even offered food and tea at least on two distinct occasions during Ramadan. Isn't eating in front of a fasting Muslim in Ramadan a punishable crime in some countries? Could you receive such an offer from a radical Muslim?  

I have many Muslim friends who pray five times in a day. They often greet me with Namaste when I greet them with Salaam. I am also in touch with many Muslim teachers who are there to help me in any way any time. There are Muslim colleagues with whom I would love to spent time when I visit India.

Radicalism is the last thing that the world should expect from Indian Muslims. It is not simply in India's loving-all nature. Exceptions exist in every religion and country, even in grammars.