अपना-अपना इस्लाम

How it feel, if I would have born as a Muslim?

Another sms, this time again someone forwarded a massage asserting how populations of Muslims are growing, which will destroy the Non Muslim community. The massage ends with a blackmailing tone suggesting you are dishonoring God if you are not forwarding this massage to 10 more Non Muslims. I am sure people who are friends with me on wattsapp, facebook and twitter etc. are not the creator of these messages but just the forwarder. I tried unsuccessfully, to investigate who is creating such massages and what is his/her intention. I asked one of my Muslim friends if he knows that such massages are circulating very frequently, he said he knows it because once in a while he get such massages by senders mistake. I was very sorry about his situation but could not utter a word due to feeling embarrassed myself.

The incidents lead me to think what is his fault that he is born as a Muslim and moreover what is my contribution that I am an Non Muslim, I mean what is there to be proud of? What if I would have born as a Muslim? My conscious calmed me for long but I could not imagine living in today’s world without having a negative consciousness of me being a Muslim. Starting from extremists who are advocating that I can become sacred just by converting my religion, my reaction could have been a logical negation or an angry banter, whatever it may but the comment would have left me burdened by my own religion. When an educated Muslim found guilty of plotting or executing a terror attack; to defy the liberals, extremists use their infamous cliché, “Yes all Muslims may not be terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims”. I would have definitely goggled and discovered that above is a false statement, I would have felt to cry out loud enough so that whole India can listen that all terrorists are not Muslims. Today’s atmosphere against my tribe would have made me more popular if I critisise the Muslims who are violent instead of who suggesting all terrorists are Muslims. Me and most of my friends of my age group 25-35 have not read Gita, Bible or Gurbani; I as a Muslim would not have read the Koran either but one thing I always would have believed that a book how much ever holy, written thousands of years ago may been interpreted by few wrongly or even written wrongly can be a cause of such hatred towards a community. I would have tried to laugh it off but in the end a tear must have rolled down to my cheeks. I would have definitely tried reading Koran but its heaviness and few people’s hatred towards it would have made me read Taslima and Rusdie instead.

A young individual, I would have liked a girl with beautiful smile and just gone after her to impress her, how she would have reacted on knowing that I am a Muslim? Current hype around Love Jihad would have made me conscious and my target girl would have scared of even talking to me. I always would have a question, are people scared of me and that’s why they hate me? Being a Muslim girl would have limited my choices just to Muslim boys but if a Non Muslim would have offered me the first question I would have asked, “Is it not Love Jihad?” My faith in my religion would have obliged me to follow the trend of wearing a skull cap & keeping a beard but I would have hated it secretly as it make me vulnerable more than often, but not following the trend would have made me target of Muslim fundamentalists who would have declared me a coward. I would definitely have aspiration to be famous, earn large money and travel the world, I may have been a hard worker and keep putting efforts to fulfill my dreams or I would have surrendered to live an average life, consoling myself that it is because of my religion. Not all Non Muslims or Christians become successful but the pretext they use to console themselves to lead an average life might not have been religious. I would have made friends of other religions too, who would either remain suspicious of me or be extra nice to me and I wouldn’t have liked both the attitude because I always wanted true friends who don’t think before talking to me but for that I would have limited myself to Muslim friends only.

Few opportunists in my religion would have affiliated themselves to a political outfit in the name of welfare but expecting welfare from them would have been equal to expecting pigs to fly. Oh did I said pig, forgive me God as the controversy over cow & pig has already taken too many lives and remains a reason of hatred. I would have instead voted in the name of development and celebrated victory of even non Muslim candidate but soon to realize that economic development cannot come before social equality & development. For Muslims who are very backward economically and socially loosing collective political voice may push us even back. As an educated citizen voting on the basis of cast or religion would have seemed very irrational to me but do I have choice.
Thinking about being a Muslim for a day has given me enough disturbances. There may be a problem within Islam but that is with every other religion because they were written long back. Following a solution centric approach mainstreaming Muslims socially is very important, which needs a mind-shift of Muslims and Non-Muslims as well. Humanity is above religions, which teaches us to support the weaker. In today’s scenario most Muslims in India are psychologically weaker; let us show how much we love them instead of asking proof of their loyalty.