BetweenTheLines

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook I ndian Islamic scholar Maulana Hussain Madani, who headed the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary for three decades from 1927 to 1957, challenged poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal when the latter began pushing his idea of territorial nationalism in the 1930s. Madani held his own against Iqbal, a Cambridge University alumnus and arguably Urdu’s greatest poet, in an informed debate on nationhood. Madani cited Islamic sources to argue for composite nationalism and united India while rejecting Iqbal’s idea. Muhammad Ali Jinnah fleshed out the idea in the shape of Pakistan that was created by partitioning the Indian subcontinent in 1947. He overshadowed people such as Madani as he made Pakistan a reality. The division did not just trigger mass killings and migrations but also led to the Muslim brain drain to Pakistan. The drain accelerated the margination of the Muslims left behind. A decline in clerical quality that scholars such as Madani and Abul Kalam

  Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook I t is now clear as daylight: having Indian Muslims at each other's throats is an aspect of the larger project against them. Much of it is done with a lot of subtlety including through hired guns for deniability. One such hired gun, claiming to be a Shia, released a book this month and in the process revealed the hand of his sponsors by making some incendiary and unpublishable comments against Islam and the Prophet amid usual open calls for violence against Muslims. He got an instant pat on the back from his patrons but in the process ended up exposing himself for a Shia is defined by her devotion to the prophet and his family. ALSO READ: Indian Muslim Invisiblisation & Curious Case Of Pakistani Shias The Prophet, for Shias, tops the group of sanctified Chahardah Masum (14 immaculate from sin, or infallible). It includes the Prophet's daughter, Fatima, son-in-law, Imam Ali, grandsons, Hasan and Hussain, and Hussain’s descendants

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook O n one of his trips to Srinagar, the capital of the Indian side of Kashmir, veteran BBC journalist Sir Mark Tully heard an unusual, rhythmically rising and falling chanting from a white marble mosque. The chanting at sunrise from the revered mosque on the banks of the Dal Lake in Hazratbal, which houses a relic of the Prophet Muhammad, he wrote, sounded 'not unlike Hindu bhajans'. Tully was not entirely off the mark. The chanting was that of Aurad-ul-Fatiha, an anthology of Quranic verses and the Prophet’s sayings  14th-century saint Mir Syed Ali Hamdani complied for converts to Islam to chant in mosques similar to how it was done in temples. ALSO READ: Once Scorned, How Peshawaris From 'Central Asia's Piccadilly' Ruled Bollywood The faithful have been chanting the anthology in mosques since then in a major departure from the otherwise Muslim practice of silent worship. Hamdani, who popularised Islam among the masses in Ka

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook I t was perhaps no coincidence that on September 4, 2020, an imam at Mecca’s Grand Mosque dwelt on Prophet Mohammed’s kindness to a Jewish neighbour. The reference, days before the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain signed agreements on September 15, 2020, to normalise ties with Israel, was seen as part of the groundwork for other Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia to follow suit. The thaw in Arab-Israel relations is a culmination of years of behind-the-scenes work that Arab leaders have been hinting at. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in 2018, backed the Israelis’ 'right to have their own land'. Bahrain defended Israeli airstrikes in Syria the same year, saying Israel ' has the right to defend itself .' A year later, Bahraini foreign minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa called Israel a part of the region’s heritage . ALSO READ: Hardline-Reformist Binary Ignores Core Of Iranian Political System Bin Salman

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook I ran  had valiantly fended off US-backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s invasion for eight years until July 1988 when Americans downed a civilian aircraft to deal a death blow to the resistance.  All 290 civilians aboard the plane met their watery graves in the Persian Gulf . The tragedy turned out to be the last straw, convincing Tehran that the US was now openly siding with Saddam. The fear coupled with Saddam's use of chemical weapons prompted  Iran  to accept an UN-brokered ceasefire in September 1988.  But Iranians could hardly breathe easy after the end of the 20th century’s longest war that is estimated to have killed around a million. Along with the consequences of the conflict,  Iran  faced crippling American sanctions following the post-revolution seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and the captivity of American diplomats. The 444-day hostage crisis has remained etched in the American memory and defined its hostility tow