Deoband seminary’s new leader faces opposition

By Ravi Nessman


NEW DELHI: One of the world’s most revered schools of Islamic learning, whose strict interpretations of the holy Quran inspired the Taliban, is facing a revolt against its newly appointed reformist leader _ an MBA with a Facebook fan page.
Guns have been fired, accusations of idolatry tossed about and the student body of 150-year-old Darul Uloom, in the northern Indian town of Deoband, has been riven into rival factions.

The turmoil will come to a head on Wednesday when the council that named Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi to lead the legendary seminary just last month will decide whether to fire him.

Vastanvi, who has promised to modernise the curriculum and rein in hardline religious edicts, is facing a determined campaign by opponents who want to take control of the powerful institution for themselves and have hammered him for comments that appeared to praise Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, who is loathed by Muslims.

“People are angry with Vastanvi,” said Arif Siddiqi, secretary of the powerful Jamiat Ulemai-Hind, which is confident it has the votes to oust him.

Raging power battles are not unprecedented at the institution, which has 4,000 students and, as the centre of the Deobandi school of Islam, is seen as the spiritual light for thousands of other schools across the Middle East, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Britain, the United States and Malaysia.

Much of the Taliban leadership attended Deobandi-influenced seminaries in Pakistan.

It was founded in 1866 by Mohammed Qasim Nanautawi to preserve Islamic culture in India and preaches an austere form of Islam its founders regarded as authentic.

The school’s legacy is complex. While it has inspired many antiIndian groups, it has been strongly pro-India itself, with some of its leaders even serving in parliament.

It has courted controversy with recent fatwas _ religious edicts _ barring women from working with men and forbidding the purchase of insurance policies. But it also earned praise for its 2008 ruling that terrorism and the killing of innocents violated Islam.

For much of its history, the school was controlled by Qasim Nanautawi’s heirs, until the early 1980s when a rival scholar, Asad Madani, orchestrated a virtual coup and installed an ally to lead the school.

After Asad Madani died in 2006, his brother, Arshad, and his son, Mahmood, split in a bitter rivalry. After the death of Asad Madani, who led Darul Uloom for three decades, the family fight allowed Vastanvi _ whose daughter is married to Arshad Madani’s son _ to win election as his replacement.

Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi, 60, himself has strong credentials as a modernist reformer, having started another Islamic educational institution in western India more than three decades ago. With a philosophy of combining modern education with Islamic studies, it churns out hundreds of doctors, teachers, engineers, as well as Islamic scholars, every year.

‘A breath of fresh air’ After being named head of Darul Uloom, Vastanvi announced plans to establish medical, engineering and pharmaceutical schools to supplement Islamic education. He also said he would maintain tighter control of fatwas.

Barbara Metcalf, a former president of the American Historical Association and a leading scholar on Deobandi Islam, said Vastanvi seemed to be “a breath of fresh air” among an old guard too focused on old issues, including Muslim victimhood and defence of Urdu.

“He comes in addressing what a new generation is saying are the real interest of Muslims: education, employment, integration into the mainstream,” she said.

Controversy erupted almost immediately, when Vastanvi was quoted as saying that Muslims were prospering in his home state of Gujarat _ one of India’s wealthiest regions. His words were instantly interpreted as praise for Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist accused of stoking a massacre of Muslims that killed about 1,000 people in 2002.

Vastanvi denied that was his intention. But it gave his opponents an opening in their fight to retake control of the powerful and wealthy school, said Mushirul Hasan, director general of the National Archives of India who has written extensively on Deobandi Islam.

“This is a stick they wanted to use to beat him with,” he said.

As anger grew, his opponents piled on, accusing Vastanvi of distributing idols of Hindu gods.

“We have photographs in our possession. We can prove that,” Siddiqi said.

Ishaq Vastanvi, the Deobandi leader’s brother, denied such an incident ever occurred.

Vastanvi’s background has also generated opposition. He is the first Deoband leader to come from outside north Indian Islamic heartland, to not belong to a prominent family and to have studied elsewhere. “They don’t want an outsider,” Ishaq Vastanvi said.

Vastanvi’s proposed modernisation of the school has also raised concerns.

Only a fraction of Muslims get educated in seminaries, and their curriculum shouldn’t be changed, Siddiqi said.

“The remaining 98 per cent of Muslims can get modern education elsewhere. We have no problems with that,” he said.

Ishaq Vastanvi denied his brother was planning a major shake-up.

“He doesn’t want to change the Islamic system of education at Darul Uloom, which has produced scholars of eminence. He is in favour of things like imparting computer education to the students, which is a must in today’s world,” he said. The fight has stirred deep passions.

Rival factions are holding gatherings ahead of Wednesday’s meeting to try to drum up support. In one meeting two weeks ago, gunshots were fired, though no one was injured, said Brij Lal, director general of police in Uttar Pradesh.

In the closed world of Deobandi politics, neither side called the police. It was left to a concerned neighbour to report the gunplay, Lal said.

Adbul Khaliq Madrasi, the deputy leader of the school, denied any violence. School officials have barred the media from the campus until after Wednesday’s meeting of the school council. Media reports said the Madanis had joined forces to try to push out Vastanvi.

M.J. Akbar, an Indian journalist who writes extensively on the Muslim community, said the changes Vastanvi was expected to bring were bound to create conflict.

“He is basically expanding the horizon of the institute,” he said. “The time has come to take another quantum leap forward.”—AP

Deoband seminary

Fear and hunger as thousands of Africans hide in Libya

03/03/2011

DAKAR: In the rush to rescue foreigners from Libya, thousands of migrant Africans are being left behind, holed up at home terrified as insurgents mistake them for mercenaries fighting for Moamer Qadhafi’s regime.

Rumours that Qadhafi has hired fighters from south of the Sahara to quash a popular revolt against him have made hordes of Africans targets of popular anger, many from poor countries unable to organise their evacuation.

Abdulai Sisay, a student at a college of Islam in Benghazi, is one of up to 4,000 Sierra Leoneans in Libya, and his mother Aminata, 60, in Freetown says she is in constant touch with him.

“He is very much afraid as he is barricaded in his rented house and refuses to open his doors when there is a knock,” she told AFP on Wednesday.

“He says some of his friends have been attacked by unknown armed people because he is black. When he peeps through the window, he constantly hears shouts of ‘kill the black mercenaries financed by Qadhafi.’” It is not known how many Africans make up the considerable foreign labour force lured to the oil-rich nation, and countries have reported anything from several thousand to 300,000 from neighbouring Chad and 50,000 from Nigeria.

Countries like Sierra Leone are looking for help to evacuate their citizens, while others send planes for small groups of people such as key embassy staff or adopt a wait-and-see attitude while citizens stream across borders.

The UN refugee agency and International Organisation for Migration report some 140,000 people have already left Libya by land.

“Day after day, some governments are managing to send boats to evacuate thousands of their nationals but Africans, who are the most vulnerable and destitute, are being left behind,” said Human Rights Watch emergency director Peter Bouckaert.

“The sub-Saharan African workers are in dire need of evacuation because of the threats they face in Libya,” he said in a statement released Wednesday.

The head of the Libyan Human Rights League Ali Zeidan accuses Chad of leading a group of foreign fighters including citizens from Niger, Mali, Zimbabwe and Liberia.

“There are about 25,000 mercenaries in Libya, but they have not all been deployed yet. They are being led by two generals commanded by Chad’s ambassador to Libya Daoussa Deby, the brother of Chadian President Idriss Deby.” He said officers were being paid 2,000 US dollars a day and soldiers 300 dollars a day.

El Hadj Aboubacar in Niamey has three children in Tripoli.

“They say that as soon as a black ventures into areas controlled by insurgents he is mistaken for a mercenary hired by Qadhafi and killed,” he said.

Also from Niger, Boubacar Gouzaye told a radio station in his country that Africans remained cloistered in their rooms with nothing to eat.

“There is a severe shortage of vegetables, food, people are eating only boiled white rice,” he said.

Several governments have denied their nationals are working as mercenaries in Libya; however north Malian officials say hundreds of young Tuaregs from Mali and Niger, including ex-rebels, had been recruited.

Embattled leader Qadhafi, who has lost control of the majority of his country, has used his 41-year reign to establish himself as a true pan-Africanist and self-proclaimed “King of Kings of Africa.” He has financed and trained rebels in many of the continent’s major conflicts, poured petro-dollars into struggling countries as well as the African Union and backed up political movements while pushing his dream for a United States of Africa.

However Qadhafi has come under fire for racism against black Africans, who he referred to as “starving and ignorant barbarians” in Italy last year.

The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) has raised fears of “a massive movement”of people towards Niger as a result of the threat they are facing in Libya, suspecting as many as 100,000 may flee to the neighbouring country within a month. – AFP

Fear and hunger as thousands of Africans hide in Libya | World | DAWN.COM

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Arab revolts jolt West into reassessing policies

BEIRUT: The revolts shaking the Arab world are forcing western powers to reassess their foreign policy in the region, long focused on self-interest rather than promoting democratic principles, analysts say.

“We are facing the downfall of the old Arab order and the birth of a new one, a process that could take months or years,” political science professor Khattar Abu Diab, of the University of Paris XI, said.

“But one thing is sure, this democratic tsunami will not stop,” he added.

“The Arab youths who took to the streets have forced western countries to realise that the regimes they backed are not eternal and that they must listen to the people and not focus only on their own economic interests.” The first wakeup call for the West came with Tunisia’s so-called “Jasmine Revolution” that toppled strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The next jolt came with the spectacular downfall of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak that inspired the popular uprising against Libya’s Moamer Kadhafi and demonstrations in other Arab countries, including Yemen, Bahrain and Jordan.

The revolts not only caught off guard the region’s many autocratic rulers but upended the long-standing policies of Western countries which, fearing an Islamist tide, for decades backed regimes that openly flouted basic human rights and democratic principles.

“Arab regimes had convinced the West that the only other alternative if they were toppled was Islamist extremism, but they were proven wrong,” said Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Middle East Carnegie Centre.

“The Islamists have been present during the revolutions sweeping the region but they are well aware that these revolts and the slogans they carry are not theirs to claim,” he added.

“The people are opting for other slogans — freedom, modernity, diversity and democracy.” Analysts also criticised the lack of foresight among Western countries which failed to read the early warning signs of simmering discontent in Arab societies.

“Western countries were taken by surprise... because they were only in contact with the political leadership,” said French political analyst Agnes Levallois, author of “Moyen Orient, mode d’emploi” (A User’s Guide to the Middle East).

“They were blindsided by two themes: the fight against fundamentalism and illegal immigration,” she added. “They must now begin a dialogue with new interlocutors... to build faith and a real partnership with the youths behind the revolts.” But the major question today is who will emerge as the voice of the new Middle East once the dust settles.

Although some analysts expressed concern that Islamist movements could gain ground in future elections, others said the democratic wind of change would sweep away extremism.

“The revolts will stem the rise of Islamism... which will have a share in upcoming elections but not a significant one,” predicted Salem.

The West, especially the United States, will also be closely watching how emerging democracies in the Middle East deal with Israel and western oil interests in the region, the analysts said.

Diab said Washington and its western allies are left with no choice but to adopt a more balanced approach when dealing with the region, especially as concerns the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“All these uprisings and revolutions are not spurred by ideology,” he said.

“But their steadfastness lies in the creation of a new regional equation that respects justice and equality, including as concerns the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

“By doing so, the West would defuse the most explosive issue in the Middle East.”—AFP

Arab revolts jolt West into reassessing policies

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