Moulvi!

“These ignorant molvis (preacher and prayer leader) …”, “How can they go about saying such things?”, “They don’t know anything about Islam”, “I guess Islam doesn’t forbid so and so act, the moulvi must have made it up, how can something so popular in our society be haram?” and above all “These moulvis don’t know anything about lifestyle and culture?” are some of the most common complaints my educated and self proclaimed liberal friends have had since as long as I can recall.

The increased violence, emergence of radical groups and widening sectarian divides had added their flavor to their concerns with accusations such as “Moulvis spread Takfir and divide the umma”, “They support the radical groups and khwarijs” etc.

Commencement of Ramadan is accompanied by regularity in prayers hence increased traffic to mosques and faithful who normally skip namaz make efforts to fulfill the daily obligation more religiously. The downside of this reignited religiosity is the frequent interaction with moulvi and their distant thoughts such as denouncement of attire or absence of beard and the all too common practice of worshiping without covering ones head.

These woes can easily be reduced if the perpetrators learn to exercise caution and abstain from highlighting petty diversions which have become too popular to be considered as such.

However, moulvis aren’t able to subdue this urge as they live an entirely different life. Most of them spend their lives in secluded seminaries. Disconnected from mainstream society they are rendered incapable of understanding popularity of certain garb and why would they? Why are they expected to know the norms and lifestyle of an alien culture? Most of them spend their lives in secluded seminaries.

The gulf will only get wider and wider as we don’t send any of our children to seminaries for learning religion or faith instead we enroll them in English Medium schools and later into highly expensive professional colleges in order to equip them with necessary skills of acquiring wealth. To raise a moulvi can never be as profitable as an accountant, engineer or doctor.  Therefore, we prevent a moulvi to be born off our society and especially from a well reputed, civilized and noble family such as ours.

The second option by virtue of which a moulvi can somehow alleviate seclusion is through marriage but God forbid if any of them dare interact with us, seeking the hand of our daughter or sister in marriage, we are offended beyond respite. How dare he think himself worthy of our highly educated and properly schooled princess?

In case an idiot steps up, he is made an example to ward off others. The culprit is punished by getting his contract terminated from the concerned mosque. The case of sinister desires, low moral standards, hypocrisy and tyranny is built for the cause and why shouldn’t it be after all it is the molvis who tell everyone to lower their gaze and observe purdah and instances such as these expose their preference for our daughter/sister.

This attitude of ours simply shut the gates of our society and seals the fate of our mosques. The later is left at the mercy of dreaded foreigners or worse, it is occupied by salaried adulators, flannel mongering and taffy talkers.  The eventuality is a classic recipe for, inevitable, conflict and rift between moulvi and the society he is supposed to shepherd or serve. In both of these cases damage is substantial.

It’s not doom and gloom but has certain inherent benefits. Firstly, if we don’t want to follow or agree to a certain thing propagated by moulvi he can conveniently be disowned. The second situation i.e. of an incense wage earner serves our ego and nurtures our pride. We brag about how easily we control the moulvi? How he is rendered powerless to utter something which may be displeasing to us.

The wealthy or active members of the mosque would also benefit from the periodic fatehas and prayers for their deceased relations as a fringe benefit. Salaried moulvi is like a master chef who sets up a buffet and fills it up with only the dishes preferred by the clientele. He serves innovative and improvised meals and often at the expense of health and nutritional value.

These creatures can easily devoid us of the true meaning of our religion through conceit, flattery or stern and uncompromising attitude. Therefore, if you feel troubled by the sermons or the usual calls to piety bug you. The propagated dress code is not to your liking. Your wardrobe lacks appropriate attire for prayers. Then stand up and send such moulvis packing.

They are not and cannot be relations. When they cannot be accepted and made part of the society, which they serve and lead in prayers. Then why put up with them? Why allow them the opportunity to exercise certain powers associated with mosques?

After all:

• What do these strangers know about fashion or style?
• What could someone who makes his living off a meager part of donations collected from the neighborhood know about economics, business or trade?
• How can they know about our intentions and feelings, they haven’t been refined through English medium schools?
• They still read Urdu and Arabic books written ages ago what could they possibly know about modern science?

Let us indeed send them packing as we can replace them easily. We can let our religious intellect and know-all brains to guide us. Our intellect has evolved to an extent whereby we can rightly interpret religion. Why go through the hassle of learning we are Muslims for generations and surely we know everything.

If, in certain unique and uncommon situations, we face difficulties than surely we can rely on technology and google the solutions in no time. In fact with smart phones it can be done in real time. We can conveniently solidify our arguments, opinions and judgments through false traditions and weakly linked hadiths.

Let us fulfill our most important religious obligation of spreading the true meaning and practices of Islam in our midst. Let us start by reclaiming our mosques. Let us send these moulvi’s back to the caves. Let us banish them from our neighbourhoods and perhaps then we may be blessed with rains. It may be that Allah doesn’t send showers on us because of unnecessary and continuous nagging, criticism and checks of moulvis.