National Hero

National Hero

1991 5-6 May-June 11-12 National Hero (425) A B.Sc. student burst into the office of the Dean of the Department of Theology at the Aligarh Muslim University. “This is a Muslim University!” he said with great vehemence. “You are in charge of the religious affairs here. I must bring it to your notice that there is a book in English, here, in the Azad library which contains a picture of our Holy Prophet, may peace be upon him, you must have this book removed immediately from the library, other wise...”

The Dean of Theology replied, you know how big the Azad library is. Books keep coming to it from different parts of the world. In such circumstances, we would very likely also receive books which make fun of God. Will you go on being provoked every time you come upon a book of this nature?” “Sir” the student replied, “God belongs to everybody, but the Holy Prophet belongs to us.” (Ehtisab, Aligarh, May 15, 1984)

Why did the student think of Allah as belonging to all while he thought of the Prophet as being his very own? The reason was that he regarded the Prophet as the national hero of his own community. Every community has a hero of its own who is a source of pride, just as every community regards its own hero as being superior to the heroes of other communities. God can be common, to all, but no such sharing is possible as regards a national hero. It was due to this communal psychology that the Muslim student lost his temper at the disrespect shown to the Prophet, whereas he was not going to mind if God was made fun of.

This incident aptly portrays the attitude of present-day Muslims, who never celebrate God’s Day, but who mark the Prophet’s Day with great pomp and ceremony all over the world. The reason is simply that according to their national psychology, they do not feel any affinity with God, because they do not take any personal pride in Him. On the other hand, since the Prophet Muhammad has become their hero on the plane of history and, in that sense, is a source of national pride, they hold celebration in his honour’ in order to give expression to their natural feelings of pride.

Atheism is the order of the day. But Muslims feel no enthusiasm about working towards the intellectual domination of monotheism over atheism. Instead, they allow themselves to be provoked at finding a picture of the Prophet. This, surely, is hero worship. It is certainly not God-worship.