A fatwa against all fatwas

A couple of days ago I was reading an article about Salim Khan's family being issued a fatwa for celebrating the Ganesh Utsav. The incident struck me as hilarious - for it seemed like a bunch of unknown nincompoops issuing a fatwa against another bunch of not so unknown nincompoops. Also apparently, according to the article, this isn't the first time a fatwa was issued against the Salim family. My humour eventually turned to curiosity and I decided to research a bit further on the whole episode. And if you happen to get curious as well, check out the below link which features a YouTube video capturing the whole incident.

youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKSzB3VcwQ

But first, my disclaimer given the (potential) sensitivity of the whole issue - I am a muslim myself and the views I state are my own. And I am not so crazy about celebrity craze either. Where I mention the term 'society', I actually refer to humanity in general, a group that comprises of each and every individual regardless of their religious preferences (as opposed to a religious society which constitutes a bunch of people following a particular religion). The fatwa in question was issued by a member of a religious organization by the name of All India Muslim Personal Board (AIMPB).

About AIMPB: If wikipedia sources are to be believed, the AIMPB was originally constituted by a group of three people (MJ Akbar, Syed Shahabuddin and Obaidullah Khan Azmi) as a direct outcome of the supreme court ruling on the Shah Bano case of 1978. AIMPB is non governmental, has no legal binding but offers advice to the government to support the application and promulgation of sharia law (muslim personal law) within the muslim minority. For lack of time, I am not going to spend any more time researching on the contributions of these three people to the religious community.

This is a perfect example why I dislike the idea of institutionalization of religion in general. Agreed, such institutionalization has its benefits. If you look back in history, it certainly played an important role in retaining the origins of the religion itself. Besides promoting faith, it also seeks to foster a harmonious community spirit among its members. But then it is also undeniably true that some of these so called representatives of a religion (aka the institutional powers that be) abuse their privileges and instill a sense of disharmony into the very heart of the society they live in. Mind you, I speak not of a particular religion but any religion in general (and I can give you plenty of examples of different religions from our modern civilization who are guilty of this craziness).

The society that we live in has its more than enough share of religions and it becomes very important that religious tolerances exist among those who seek to coexist within a society. The Salim family is a perfect example of such co-existence. Salim is a muslim and his wife a hindu. I fail to see the rationality of a religious body issuing some so called 'fatwa' against Salim khan merely because Salim khan loves his family and happens to be tolerant of his wife's faith. If the members of the religious body that issued this fatwa have a problem with this, IMHO they themselves are violating the basic rules of living in our society and hence should leave our society and go find some remote uninhabited spot of savage land, far away from this society and perhaps enforce their pompous rules onto one another until they become totally extinct. Salman khan is a lunatic by all means but I fully support him and his dad in this case. I could have probably understood the reasons if Salim said something to promote disharmony within the religion or enforce his views onto others but I fail to see a shred of evidence that this is the case. Instead this just reeks of cheap publicity gimmicks of some institutionsstruggling to announce their presence. Just like in the case of the Sania fatwa.

Or perhaps this is just a symptom of something very awfully anemic within our society. If a political scum like Narendra Modi can get away with his co-ordinated murder and rape of thousands of innocent people during the recent Gujarat riots, and still manage to get voted back into power by the very people who come from the same society as us, then perhaps there is no such thing as basic rules of living in a society. Salman Khan was right, fatwas are becoming a joke. In fact, I will take it one step further and say societal rules are becoming a joke too.