INDIAN MUSLIMS AT THE CROSSROADS

India. That day is not far when our country begins its journey towards progress in leaps and bounds, and thereby achieve a respectful place on the global map which it truly deserves. As for Indian Muslims, they lagged far behind the other communities in the ladder of progress. After the demolition of Babri Mosque on 6 December, 1992, they are more in despair than ever. They feel that they do not have opportunities of progress in this country. This thinking is totally unwarranted. The principles in this matter is that no external event decides the decline or fall of a nation. The decisive factor in the rise and fall of a nation is its own internal capacity and energy, and not external events. Nations always move ahead with the power of their internal determination. If fortitude and determination are present, no external upheaval can cause hindrance in the journey of a nation’s progress. As for the mosques, there are many instances in the Muslim history where mosques became the target of the public frenzy. In AD 692, the army sent by Hajjaj bin Yusuf bombarded the Kabah using a catapult. It is mentioned in the books of history: Makkah was besieged, the haram bombarded with missiles, and the Kaba set on fire, the Sacred Black Stone was split in three pieces. (1/1047) Notwithstanding these, the history of Islam did not halt. Those who had bombarded the Sacred Mosque, Kabah, were the ones who built it again. The Tartars ransacked the Muslim world in 1258, and demolished hundreds of mosques from Samarkand to Aleppo. Even this calamity did not put a stop to the progress of Islamic history. Again, the Tartars themselves built all these mosques. Even in India, thousands of mosques were razed in Haryana, Punjab, and in Rajasthan in 1947. Not one of these events put a stop to the wheels of Islamic history. Why would then one think that the demolition of Babri Mosque would bring the history of Islam to an end. The crucial thing for the Muslims is not the fact that Babri Mosque was demolished on 6, December, 1992, but the fact that still, there are more than 300,000 mosques in India. Religious seminaries in numbers exceeding the mosques are spread everywhere. Islamic institutes and Nations always move ahead with the power of their internal determination. If fortitude and determination are present, no external upheaval can cause hindrance in the journey of a nation’s progress.