With reference to Iqbal Ahmed Sherif’s article, “When will Jamaat-Islami learn?” (DV Aug. 16, 1991). I have to say as a regular reader of DV since three years that though your concern for the downtrodden and the minorities is appreciable, expressed in various issues of the DV, this article left me very much dejected and sad.
As an advocate and secretary of the Muslim Laws Protection Committee, Sheriff should be naturally a learned man. But his language makes me bow my head with shame. When he says that the Jamaat does not even possess the wisdom of a dog, one is bewildered to think if a person supposed to be an upholder of Law (being an advocate) can stoop to such a mean and convulsing levels? I feel pity for his moral bankruptcy.
The Bluff: His bluff of having read Moulana Moduli’s and Jamaat-e-Islami literatures is blown off when he writes that
” …. both survive by appeasing and opposing each other … We have not seen a Jamaat book on social science, politics or even on history … it has no social, economic, political, educational or organizational contributions …. ” I am afraid inspite of his cherished tall claim to know Jamaat threadbare, he does not know the ABCD of Islam or Jamaat which is heading a movement for the reconstruction of society based on morality and justice. Similar movements are being run in many countries, though in different names.
The methodology of Jamaat is based on the Koran and the “Sunnah’ of Prophet Mohammed. Such a great organization with its sister organizations throughout the world does not need the suggestions of Iqbal Sheriff’s caliber. To whatever degree one may disagree with one’s programme, one should not try to impose one’s own views. One can only suggest, and while doing so we should observe norms of decency.
