Muslims Distance Themselves From Attacks

MUMBAI: From peace marches to calls for toned-down Eid celebrations, Mumbai's Muslims are doing all they can to dissociate themselves from last week's attacks that were carried out in the name of Islam.

Even though dozens of the 172 dead were Muslim, community leaders have expressed concerns that Hindu nationalists could exploit the attacks for political gain -- or could target Muslims directly.

The city's Muslims, who make up about 15 percent of Mumbai's estimated 19-million-strong population, were to take to the streets after Friday prayers in a peace march.

But they cancelled the event, feeling that participation in the mass rally that attracted tens of thousands of people on Wednesday night to mark one week since the attacks was enough.

"We had already carried out a march on Wednesday and hence decided not to hold a fresh one," said Ibrahim Tai, president of the Muslim Council Trust, referring to the mass rally by the Gateway of India, opposite the Taj Mahal hotel, which was one of the main targets of the attacks.

Leading figures in the community have called for Eid al-Adha celebrations to be limited only to those rituals that are strictly necessary.

Eid-al-Adha commemorates the prophet Ibrahim's obedience to God through his willingness to sacrifice his son and is marked by the ritual slaughter of animals.

A number of Islamic organisations are also categorically refusing to have those responsible for the deadly attacks buried on Indian soil.

"An Indian Muslim is as much worried, shocked or disturbed as his neighbour," said Bollywood scriptwriter Javed Akhtar, a self-declared atheist who nonetheless still considers himself part of the Muslim community.

"In a perfect world it would not be necessary to say it. The attackers are pretending to hold the flag of Islam and acting in the name of 'jihad' (holy struggle).

"Anybody who is a Muslim has to distance him or herself (from those) who are giving this diabolic face of Islam."

Religious leader Moulana Mustaqueem A. Azmi said Indian Muslims "have been saying for the last five or six years that they have nothing to do with this but are struggling to defend themselves from accusations against them."

Azmi, the secretary of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Maharashtra, the body of Islamic scholars in Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, said Muslim groups were weaker in India than those representing the majority Hindus.

But Akhtar is against the idea that Islam in India should have a united voice.

"The very concept that Muslims should have a leadership, that Hindus should have a leadership, that Christians should have a leadership, would divide India along religious lines," he said.

For Azmi, the Mumbai attacks smacked of a conspiracy between the Israeli secret service, Mossad, and the right-wing Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

"All the attacks in India in recent years, wherever they've happened, have been blamed on Muslims but that's changing and they don't like it," he added, referring to two fatal bombings in Maharashtra and neighbouring Gujarat state.

Both blasts in September happened in predominantly Muslim areas, including outside a mosque, and have since been blamed on Hindu extremists, allegedly outraged by a string of attacks directed against middle-class Hindus.

Right-wing Hindu groups, which have a bedrock of support in Mumbai and the state, have not spoken out publicly against Muslims in the wake of the attacks.

Muslim leaders hope it stays that way and there is no repeat of the deadly communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in 1992-93, sparked by the razing of a mosque in north India.

"Political parties that make statements likely to create divisions among religious lines should be banned," said Mohammed Mansoor Ali Qadami, head of the powerful All India Sunni Jamiat-ul-Ulema coalition, clearly referring to Hindu nationalists.

On Tuesday, the coalition told a meeting of 50 Islamic organisations that political parties should not try to take advantage of the tragedy as general elections approach next year.

This news updete by www.thearynews.com