Re: [ALOCHONA] State of Islam in Bangladesh

<< Quote>> In my personal observation what I have noticed is that the Muslims in Bangladesh are afraid of Islam, especially when the return of caliphate is chanted, an idea which is totally foreign to them. Comfortably secular, the nation is unwilling and afraid of return of Islam as a "way of life" as they fear that many of their 'freedom' would be curtailed and 'habits' would have to be changed in order to accommodate with Islamic lifestyle, which is true.<< Un Quote>>

 

So its all the Bengali Muslims fault. They are incomplete, illiterate and need a helping hand from the likes of Javed Ahmed to raise their standards belief. What a load of crap! Its the same old communal BS from 60years. This Caliphate business is just the another modern variation.

 

The GOEBBELSIAN Isha Khan is now picking articles from Extremist front organization. He is not even an ORIGINAL.

-----Original Message-----
From: Isha Khan
Sent: May 30, 2011 8:20 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients@null, null@null
Subject: [ALOCHONA] State of Islam in Bangladesh

 

State of Islam in Bangladesh

Javed Ahmad

 

I grew up hearing that Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country where almost 90% of the population is Muslim and the remaining percentage consisting of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. Even today this same information is found in many places on print and online. But what I did not realize is that the so called "Muslims" in Bangladesh are "secular" in nature.

 

I grew up learning bits and pieces about Islam that makes one a Muslim and tried my best to practice it accordingly. What I did not know then is that the Islam that I have learned is a "secular version" especially designed or evolved for / and practiced in the Indian sub-continent (which includes Bangladesh) only.

 

As I began to learn about the religion, I realized that this religion has survived for centuries in different parts of the world with unique cultural blends, and a "Bangladesh brand of Islam" has also developed over time as a result of disintegration of the Islamic empire that once stood and reigned in the region.

 

Today Islam is an "isolated and personalized religion" culturally influenced according the traditions, language and cultures of the geographical locations of the "Muslim" population. Demise of the once Islamic Caliphate that ruled pretty much the whole world resulted in emergence of secular independent states based on language, culture and local traditions. The only thing that is still common among these evolved states is that the Muslims all over the world still accepts the Qur'an as the word of Allah and Sunnah as the way of life as demonstrated by the Prophet (s) principally in theories only not necessarily in practice fully obeying them.

 

I have heard of something called the Muslim Ummah or the Muslim Brotherhood but vaguely understood it as I could hardly find in commonality among the Muslim nations nor any kind of bonding in place because of the linguistic and cultural differences. I have seen two brotherly segments of Pakistan fought each other on secular grounds causing division resulting in another secular nation - Bangladesh. Have not seen any other "Muslim country" interfering or mediate on the matter. Even today I see a "Muslim country" is being attacked by the "Non-Muslim" countries and none of the other Muslim majority country making any stand to defend the nation attached on the ground of Muslim brotherhood. Therefore, the "brotherhood" really does not exist; it is only a myth.

 

I have seen organizations like the Hizbut Tahrir calling for re-establishment of caliphate around the world including Bangladesh, but majority of the Muslims do not understand what they really mean. The common Muslims are not familiar with the concept of caliphate as the present generation has never witnessed one. Even after 52 years of struggle in this cause the organization could not achieve much in the Palestine where it was initiated or in UK where is it now stationed. They came to Bangladesh with zeal to revive caliphate but went into hiding when the secular power showed their muscles with an iron fist. I have head that most of the top leaders went back to where they came from – i.e., the UK abandoning the mission.

 

In my personal observation what I have noticed is that the Muslims in Bangladesh are afraid of Islam, especially when the return of caliphate is chanted, an idea which is totally foreign to them. Comfortably secular, the nation is unwilling and afraid of return of Islam as a "way of life" as they fear that many of their 'freedom' would be curtailed and 'habits' would have to be changed in order to accommodate with Islamic lifestyle, which is true.

 

They cannot phantom the equation of how a secular system they are so used to living in be accommodated with an Islamic system with so many do's and don't in Islam. For instance, they wonder, if there will be any banking system. If yes, they how can a bank sustain without interest income? Is the Islamic banking system we have today really Islamic? How can an economy function without banks? Will there be any judiciary system in place as we have at present? Will we have a government and bureaucracy as we currently have? Will the international organization allocate developmental funds the nation if we become Islamic? Will it be on the basis of interest? Etc. Hizbut Tahrir, instead of taking their 'politics' into the street patiently concentrated on educating the masses by showing peacefully how would caliphate work and what benefit it could bring to the population would have had a chance to win peoples support. But that opportunity is now lost.

 

As far as I am concerned, Islam would not be able to make a come back without the total collapse of the present secular system. In other words, the entire secular system must fail in order for Islam to re-establish on public demand as the 'only available option'. And if I am not mistaken, the process of fall of secularism has already begun around the globe. We are likely to witness governments after governments going bankrupt and unable to contain its masses from unrest and crisis resulted from inflation and food shortage leading toward starvation and genocides by the armed forces on to its own people. Soon, all our 'secular political geniuses' would be on the run looking for a secure place to hide from angry public which I doubt if they would find. Their so called allies would show them their backs as they too will face the same problem at their respective countries. The disbelievers (namely the Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists) have declared war against Allah by burning His book "The Holy Qur'an (Pastor Terry Jones in Florida, USA) and insulting His Prophet (s) by drawing objectionable cartoons (Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard) and occupied Muslim territories by force under false pretexts. The coming crisis will be global in nature even leading to world war three. Ideally, these reasons should have been sufficient for the so called Muslim countries to severe all ties with the 'axis of evil' and join hands together in defense, but we did not see this happen; indicating that all the Muslim governments are secular and non-Islamic. By ignoring the matter they are now all standing on the same platform of guilt against humanity in defiance of Allah's chosen religion Islam.

 

We are living in the Dajjal system for many years now. The 'person Dajjal' is yet to appear. Since the underground tunnel beneath the Masjid ul Aqsa is almost complete, the discovery of the long lost 'temple of Solomon' will result in collapse of the masjid any day symbolizing the emergence of 'the Dajjal' – the one-eyed Jew with magical powers from Israel. Therefore, the events of the advent of the prophesized Mehdi would also follow. A good chance stands that we would witness all of this in our lifetime (some consider it a farfetched dream). Shykh Imran Nazar Hosein, an eminent Islamic scholar from the island of Trinidad & Tobago will be coming to Bangladesh on a two week long lecture tour at the end of the year to share his views on these matters. Try to attend his programs to learn more about these horrific coming events.

 

Those among us who are dying to join a holy war – the ultimate form of jihad would find the opportunity to do so. And the folks who are dreaming of 'caliphate' would also see the prospect of it getting brighter and brighter. Until all that begins to take shape, we need to prepare ourselves – either for heaven or hell.

 

Muslims have been guaranteed success in this life and in hereafter by Allah as explained by the Prophet (s) if they hold on to the 'rope of Islam', which is basically the 'Qur'an and Sunnah'. Both those books are in Arabic, which is a foreign language for Bangladeshis. Therefore, we needed Islamic Foundation Bangladesh (IFB) to translate some of those Arabic books for us into Bangla so that we could learn Islam from them. Bangladeshis shows no interest in learning the Arabic language itself. If we could learn the language, the entire collection of Arabic literature on Islam would become readily accessible and understandable to us, where as, by giving the task to IFB we are now dependent on them to read only the materials they translate, thus limiting our knowledge seeking initiatives.

 

There is another problem in this approach we have taken to learn Islam. The meaning varies when the translations varies from author to author, resulting in forcing us to read multiple materials on the same topics to understand the overall meaning. Not just in Bangladesh, all the non-Arabic speaking Muslim majority countries have abandoned Arabic adopting dependency on translations of Islamic materials. And we continue to see this trend around the word contributing more on 'cultural Islam'.

 

I do not remember seeing any student at the schools and colleges I was attending in Bangladesh during my young age taking the time out to offer their obligatory prayers. Nor there were any provision for doing so even if anyone wanted to do it. Making the picture clear that there is no training on Islamic practices in the country alongside the traditional educational system. The situation is same in more organized institutions like the cadet colleges, military academies, etc. Ironically, all these institutions are run and managed by Muslims in an independent so called Muslim majority state!

 

Absence of Islamic teaching in our 'education policy' is the root cause for empowerment of 'secularism' in the country. People attending the secular education system are becoming secular having no touch with Islam whatsoever. On the other hand, we have another group who are educated in Madrasa System learning about Islamic practices with poor foundation in secular learning that could have helped them in finding jobs or become an entrepreneur to sustain. They show entrepreneurships only in formation of more madrassas that are wholly dependent on donations and handouts, thus begging all their lives to keep those institutions going while sustaining themselves. At the same time some corruption has entered into the scene where some folks collect donations in the name of madrassa and orphanages that does not exist; or even if it does, most of those collections go to their own personal use and a small amount for the actual cause.

 

Ideally, what we should have had is a balance of both the worlds – secular as well as Islam. One without the other is incomplete and dysfunctional. It is important for all Muslim to learn thoroughly about the Islamic rules (i.e., shariah) so that they could know in and out of Islamic jurisprudence while maintaining the necessary practices with complete understanding of the religion. Similarly, secular education is needed to prepare for a livelihood for a count down of worldly life.

 

We have had religion based political parties like the Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami that failed to solve our educational problems and come up with this unified policy for the nation. The Muslim League is no longer a political voice, and Jamaat-e-Islami submitted to secular parties supporting their agendas. In other words, the religion based politics have utterly failed in Bangladesh without achieving anything for the Muslim populace of the country despite the fact that they were the majority!

 

Comparatively, the Awami League party has served Islam better in Bangladesh even though they dropped the word "Muslim" from their original name (AL was originally established as Awami Muslim League). It was late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who took the initiative of re-establishing the Islamic Foundation in Bangladesh. Today, his daughter Sheikh Hasina Wazed is advocating for Islam as a 'state religion' and even called the country an "Islamic Republic… with 90 percent of its people being Muslims"!

 

We also saw late Ziaur Rahman declared Islam, and not secularism as the foundation of the nation in the constitution; and passionately tried to rejuvenate the Muslim brotherhood with other similar nations.

 

Later Husain Mohammad Ershad introduced "Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim" (meaning "In the name of Allah, most Gracious, and most Merciful") in the constitution and declared Islam as the state religion, made Friday the weekly official holiday to facilitate the Muslims to relax and offer the weekly congressional Friday prayers at a masjid, just like it is in many Middle Eastern Muslim majority countries. Most importantly, he also established the concept of Zakat fund to be organized nationally.

 

What we find common on all the secular Muslim leaders that they used Islam as a political tool to win public support by making it a sentimental issue. None of them however had any interest or desire to establish Islam as a way of life. As such, we did not see any remarkable development is faith based initiatives influencing public life in a positive manner.

 

Bangladesh got what it asked for. The whole nation being secular in nature sought out and voted for secular leaders (male or female) and was content. They never attempted to seek out a true religious minded non-political leadership who practiced Islam in and out and who could transform the nation with Islamic zeal toward Allah. Therefore, the ultimate result is that a hypocritical nation always got a hypocritical leader.

 

The higher percentage of the so called Muslim population in the country could be questioned because in my assessment, this large majority is just Muslims by name only with no knowledge or practice of true Islam. My reasons are as follows:

 

1. Majority of the Muslims in Bangladesh do not offer their obligatory five daily prayers in congregation at masjids, which is one of the fundamentals of Islam.
2. Majority of them do not perform obligatory fasts during the month of Ramadan and those who does, do not offer the daily prayers or the taraweeh prayers, which is another fundamentals of Islam.
3. On eid holidays they take off for pleasure trips away from their residence and do not socialize with the neighbors as an act of worship helping and supporting each other to make the days joyous regardless of social status, which is the true nature of the eids.
4. Majority of them do not pay 2% of poor due (zakat) from their total accumulated wealth, which is a fundamental of Islam.
5. Majority of them bank on interest based banking system mixing riba with their income they feed on, which is prohibited in Islam. There is however a system called the Islamic banking system that has emerged, which basically operates in the same manner as the non-Islamic banks when it comes to dealings with the central bank.
6. Majority do not know that in order to be a Muslim they are bound with the basic and fundamental declaration of Islam, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad (s) is His Messenger" which they are required to believe and obey by following the Qur'an and Sunnah of the Prophet (s); but they don't.
7. Majority of them takes bribes and gifts in order to carry out their job functions, which is prohibited (haraam) in Islam.
8. Majority of them do not comply with the Islamic dress codes as prescribed in the Qur'an and Sunnah. They prefer to be modern and Western like.
9. Majority of the women do not follow the obligatory wearing of veil when they appear in public places, nor their men folks oppose to it.
10. Majority of them attend co-educational academic institutes which are prohibited in Islam.
11. Majority of them do not obey and follow the law of inheritance as prescribed in the Qur'an and the Sunnah.
12. Majority do not want to see caliphate to return as a state system as they are comfortable with the present secular system.
13. Majority of them do not preach (dawah) Islam as they do not know the religion and its practices themselves.
14. Majority of them do not seek anything from Allah directly through prayers, rather they seek refuge to pir-fakirs (saints), dead or alive following their instructions and not the instructions of the Qur'an and Sunnah thus committing association or partnership (shirk) against Allah by empowering people like us to decide their affairs and actions. Everyday Allah Himself comes down to the lowest heaven to bring with Him all the prayers (duas) made to Him during the falr prayer in the early morning; but alas, only few wakes up to offer the prayer on time and seek favors from Him.
15. Majority of them go on vacations in foreign countries and do not care to fulfill their obligatory pilgrimage (hajj) when they have the means. Many goes for omrah (short pilgrimage), but ignores the obligatory hajj.

 

Considering all the points mentioned above, if I now ask what percentage of the population does adhere to all or most of the points above including the five basic pillars of Islam? The answer would be approximately 10%; which reverses the whole scenario.

 

Therefore, the situation proves that the myth of Bangladesh being a Muslim majority country is untrue; in fact it is a Muslim minority nation. Dr. Md. Saidul Islam, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore rightly puts it in his paper ""Minority Islam" in Muslim Majority Bangladesh: The Violent Road to a New Brand of Secularism" (Reference ink given below). If only 10% of Bangladeshis follow the real Islam then only 10% are real Muslims and the rest of us are hypocrites or disbelievers (kafirs) destined to go to hell, isn't it? Can we call ourselves Muslims by grossly violating Islam?

 

The Quranic chapter Āli-'Imrān (meaning "The Family of Imran"), Allah talks about death and its consequences. Among all the verses, the following verse is interesting as it refers to the believers -

 

O ye who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared, and die not except in a state of Islam. (Yusuf Ali translation: Aal-e-Imran, Chapter #3, Verse #102)

 

The verse is warning the believers that they need to submit to Islam wholeheartedly (not partially) in fear of Allah in order to successfully die in Islam. In other words, not all Muslim would die in the state of Islam. Therefore if one think ones personal version of Islam is sufficient to get a return flight to heaven, s/he is wrong. Islam must be accepted the way it has been offered to us and demonstrated by the Prophet (s) to us in a complete form. No addition (innovation) or subtraction (removal) or substitution is allowed.

 

O ye who believe! Enter into Islam whole-heartedly; and follow not the footsteps of the evil one; for he is to you an avowed enemy. (Yusuf Ali translation: Al-Baqara, Chapter #2, Verse #208)

 

It is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to have any option about their decision: if any one disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path. (Yusuf Ali translation: Al-Ahzab, Chapter #33, Verse #36).

 

Partial submission to Islam would not do us any good and is not going to save us from the hell fire. We need to submit completely to Islam from personal to national (ummah) level.

 

References:

 

Hasina wants Islam as Bangladesh state religion: http://www.inewsone.com/2011/04/27/hasina-wants-islam-as-bangladesh-state-religion/46417

 

Islam in Bangladesh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Bangladesh

 

Islam in Bangladesh (2): http://www.globalfront.com/nabic_archive/islam_in_bangladesh.htm

 

State Ideology in Bangladesh: Secularism versus Islam: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/5/4/4/7/p254478_index.html

 

Background note: Bangladesh: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3452.htm

 

Islamic Foundation Bangladesh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Foundation_Bangladesh

 

"Minority Islam" in Muslim Majority Bangladesh: The Violent Road to a New Brand of Secularism: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/13602004.2011.556893

 

Shykh Imran Nazar Hosein: http://www.imranhosein.org/

 

Not "Women" but a "Men Policy" is needed for Bangladesh: http://javedahmad.tripod.com/islam/men-policy.htm

 

http://javedahmad.tripod.com/islam/islam-in-bd.htm

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