Na ker maulvi
In a country perceived to be teeming with hypocrites, the good news is, there are still enough rational voices to make a difference. The venue of this heart-warming discovery is the readers’ forum of a blog on a Pakistani news website.
The blogger is a young woman. She was touched from behind in a public bus and she figured the culprit was an old man with white beard. She did not react with hostility and the old man had the last laugh. She connects the incident with newspaper reports of ‘maulvis’ raping little children, and with her own impression of maulvis promoting disturbance and racism in their sermons, and arrives at the obvious conclusion that ‘the most respected group of people (the elderly and the maulvi) has been transformed in to the most feared one’. And by way of explanation she says: ‘When a person is given the respect that he does not deserve, this is the inevitable outcome,’ with the assurance of someone who has either been a maulvi or who has respected maulvis before the disillusionment.
The usual maulvi-bashers joined the party and added their own experiences with and views about the ‘maulvi sahib’, ‘qari sahib’ and generally all bearded men, in the forum section. A medical doctor who practices Islam and sports a shara’yee beard wrote in to say how he likes his beard but hates the word ‘maulvi’, and wished that he would be seen as a man, a doctor, and not just a ‘bearded man’. A woman blogger chided the writer for turning one man’s indecency into a charge of depravity against all men with long facial hair. Another chaffed at linking morality with religiosity. Yet another pointed out that all aged men are not dirty old men, all bearded men are not maulvi, and all maulvis are not child molesters.
Who is a maulvi anyway? Who decides who is and who isn’t?
In its original form ‘maulvi’ is the title of honour one earns after successfully completing madrassah syllabus, and a mark of respect even in secular circles where teachers and other learned people addressed each other as ‘maulvi sahib’.
In contemporary connotation, however, the term is either used for the prayer leader of the local mosque, or for a narrow-minded and intolerant person, with or without a beard. In both cases ‘maulvi’ is essentially a lowly person, held responsible for any and all ills, as in: ‘this country’s gone to the dogs because of the maulvis’. A maulvi is a man or woman who closely measures every centimeter of exposed skin to calculate the temperature of hell’s oven in which that skin will burn. Someone who’s sure of being right, always, and therefore, never willing to learn or change their views.
It’s the kind of person you cannot argue with. They are masters at the art of one-way communication, and it’s all outbound. Maulvi, as they say in Sialkot, is a state of mind and not a state of affairs. Maulvi is a quality that is independent of religion, occupation, gender, age, and place of birth. Other than the religious maulvi there is the professional soldier, the meticulous bureaucrat, the ‘progressive’ leftist, the ‘liberal’ thinker … who are all maulvis in their own way. Their truth is the only truth. They will not allow any other view or opinion to be expressed.
The non-traditional maulvis – the clean shaved, English-speaking, trouser-wearing, self-described liberals – are not easy to recognise, without the litmus test of censorship. Liberal thinking is born out of, and thrives on, plurality of opinions, expressed without fear and favour. Every idea, every view and every notion can compete for the audience’s attention and discussion. There is no room for censorship in a liberal discourse. The two are mutually exclusive; you couldn’t argue in favour of banning Satanic Verses and be a liberal. A liberal may give his view of Salman Rushdie as a pretentious writer and of his books as nonsensical prose, and still defend his right to publish and sell books, and speak in public.
The same goes for a discourse on religion, sex, gender, and everything else dubbed ‘sensitive’ in the civilian language. There are too many ‘too sensitive’ subjects and taboo stories to kill if we let individuals decide what cannot be said. It is for this reason we have institutions, and constitutions, and principles, and ethics. There is a global consensus on minimum standards and the conduct of mass media. Media content that, among other things, passes off unsubstantiated claims and blames as facts, defames, unjustly harms, spreads hatred, uses abusive language, spreads malicious rumours, or may cause violence and unrest, can be rejected, and the editors and managing producers will only be doing their professional and civic duty.
Maulvis are not satisfied with this arrangement. They don’t want to see, read, or hear some things, which is a choice they are free to make, but then they decide that it must be bad for by everyone and demand for it to be deleted, banned, killed. The literary maulvis in India successfully opposed Rushdie’s appearance at Jaipur Literary Festival this year. The leftist maulvis in Pakistan can’t stand Islam and are just as unreasonable in their hatred against religious maulvis as the religious maulvi are against them. The journalist maulvi will err seldom but always on the side of political correctness, which is a religion in itself.
The liberal maulvi refuses to hear the counter view, both from family and peers. Instead of reasoning and arguing in favour of his or her own point of view, they forcefully demand that the counter view should be stopped, banned, killed, should not be put out in public, because it will corrupt the audience. That is precisely the argument a religious maulvi relies on in favour of censorship – that audiences are innocent, naive, even stupid, and need to be protected from potentially harmful material circulated in the public sphere.
So there. The one with a long beard may or may not be a maulvi, and the well dressed and educated one may or may not be a maulvi. The appearance does not decide. Words, actions and intentions do. So then who is maulvi in the blog and forum mentioned above? The author, the journalist who decided the headline for that blog: ‘Keep your hands to yourself, Maulvi sahib’, the readers who badmouthed maulvis in liberal solidarity? Or the straight-talking, bearded, practicing Muslim?
Who is a maulvi’s opposite number, the liberal, among these characters? The objective and critical readers who pointed out the narrative’s shortcomings without malice or prejudice? Or a reader demanding this or some other piece of writing killed for being politically incorrect?
The uplifting part of this reading experience was in numbers. Maulvis had their say in the forum, though none were rabid enough to demand a ban. Rational and liberal responses were few but they stole all the attention and received likes in three digits. In other words hundreds of readers took the blogger and maulvi-bashers for real ‘maulvis’ and chose to side with the more liberal comments. As long as these voices are around, driving the discourse, maulvis won’t have their way. These are your voices. Keep them trained and keep them coming.
Masud Alam is an Islamabad-based writer, columnist and journalism trainer. He can be reached at masudalam@yahoo.com
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
I appreciate the writer’s comments on my blog.
I believe that the word maulvi has been defamed by the maulvis themselves.
In pakistan, everything is misused.
People requesting for a glass of water barge in the house and rob..
You give a car lift to a ‘helpless’ and your are robbed on gunpoint.
Similarly you get shocked by the behavior of moulvis and some elderly people in our society.
Maulvi is the person who taught many of us how to say Kalma, when the efforts of parents caesed just after memorizing only the first Kalma, oblivious of the fact that there are five more. Maulvi is the person who guides us about ablution and prayers. Maulvi is the person who gives azan to invite us to succeed in hereafter and leads five time prayers to retain the ummah united. Moulvi is the persons who gives ghusal to the departed ones and leads a janaza and fateha. History bears witness that a mosque was built during the life of Prophet Mohammad (saw) to conspire against islam – which the Prophet ordered to demolish. We must not vituperate the entire institution for unfitting conduct of one mosque and its custodians. Thus we must wardoff any revilement against all the Molvis for the inappropriate conduct of a few.
I don’t have any prejudice, I hate all maulvis equally.
May Allah guide the writer and all of us…
Sir, your understanding of the basis of ‘Islam’ is the crux of your problem. Here’s the Basis of Authority in the Islamic State:
4.59 O you who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the messenger and those of you who are in authority; and if you have a dispute concerning any matter, refer it to Allah and the messenger if you are (in truth) believers in Allah and the Last Day. That is better and more seemly in the end.
There is no good or bad Maolvi. Maolvism is a curse in all its forms.
unfortunately in Pakistan any one with long beard and proper topee is considered molvi or a mullah with or without any education and they have their point of view.
Nice plug for a friend, maulvi saab.
True evaluation of a moulvi by the writer. The period of Mullahs is predicted to be black times for humanity. Perfect positive example is the Turkey of Atta Turk.
the writer is so innocent, that he is asking the readers to judge but still he intentionally disgraced the respected word of moulvi…by giving the title of ”Na ker maulvi”…
i am ashamed myself that i fall for such a title..
such a superb and vivid piece of writing
Loved every bit of it
There is no place for clergy in Islam. The link is direct between man and his Creator with no medium in between. Pakistanis need to stop putting these mullahs on a pedestal they don’t deserve. Stop giving them free publicity through your Facebook posts for God’s sake! Some of them are very questionable.
All these fake “maulvis” of all kinds r there because of us, not b/c they deserve or qualify for that status. If v learn Quran with translation from multiple sources, or better learn Arabic and then understands Islam, then v all will b maulvis of right kind, not ridiculing others for their shortcomings. There’s absolutely nothing wrong in being religious. Islam is the most liberal religion- gives u choices in dressing, eating, getting married, enjoying your life and resources to the fullest. Profanity, adultery, corruption, condemning other is not liberalism. Live and let other live in a civilized way is the Islam.
Sir, your understanding of the basis of ‘Islam’ is the crux of your problem. Here’s the Basis of Authority in the Islamic State:
4.59 O you who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the messenger and those of you who are in authority; and if you have a dispute concerning any matter, refer it to Allah and the messenger if you are (in truth) believers in Allah and the Last Day. That is better and more seemly in the end.
Read your amazing piece of writing. This article “na ker maulvi” is totally an eye-opener. We, the people of this country, have become judgemental, prejudiced and really self obsessive. we think only I am correct and no other person is right. It is total racism, calling a person a name due to his appearance.
Your writing made me think that I am also wrong. Mostly when a driver in front of me is not driving carefully, my first guess is that he must be a bearded man, shame on me!
Thanks for writing about it.
We need to respect each other and why not, maulvi is us, we ourselves. I become a blacksmith, you become a goldsmith, some becomes officers, some become maulvis, and yet we disrespect ourselves all the time.
I would say that the only problem with us is that we lack the true understanding and essence of education. Our logical and common sense part of life is almost finished. may be, it is due to frustration, depression or the political conditions, whatever the cause may be but we have lost the touch of humanity and love. hatred is something we are proud of today.
thanks sir, for reminding me that we all are humans.
I am sorry to say ‘moulvis’ (not all) are the one to be blamed for bringing bad name to islam by preaching ‘hatred’ ‘revenge’ in their mosque on fridays and inciting the innocent people to react to violence instead of preaching their congregation of love and tolerance in accordance to the teaching of their prophet.
Where do you live my friend, I am sure not in Pakistan
Aqil: I live in a land where there is peace;love and tolerance for all human race regardless of their religion
He is Indian.