Society : Frank Opinions ; Of Peace, Tolerance!

Ugoji Egbujo

It is good that muslims , good muslims, are drawing the line. And   it’s time they did. Boko haram members are not muslims, I agree. ISIS is not Islam. And that has to be the summation because Islam is a religion of peace , therefore any interpretation of the Koran that portrays Islam as a religion whose adherents cannot coexist with people of other faiths in peace must be discarded.
On this reading , terrorists   possessed by   faulty Islamic fundamentalist Ideology cannot be   apostles of Islam. Because if Islam is a religion of peace then   muslims in a plural society   must accept the supremacy of a shared mutually agreed   protocol of association and constitution.
Since all major   religions claim either exclusivity or superiority, the idea that the doctrines of   a particular faith can   be imposed to regulate the conducts of others is inimical to peace and harmony.   Secularism makes religion a private enterprise and makes the public space neutral, thereby reducing acrimony and   fostering peace and mutual respect.
Many muslims share the vision of a free society where minority rights are firmly protected.

   Many muslims will fight for religious freedom in England   but   will tolerate the institution of Islam as state religion in Saudi Arabia.   That doesn’t sit well.   Islam’s tolerance should     manifest in societies where muslims constitute an overwhelming majority. Islam is peace, Islam is tolerant. Boko haram and ISIS are products of the idea that secularism is evil. Countries like Saudi Arabia should allow real religious freedom.
It is easy and perhaps convenient to identify and dissociate from elements and interpretations that occasion conspicuous,   egregious evil. Boko haram has brought shame to Islam and Islam has disowned it. I agree the terrorists   are lunatics. It is   however more   difficult to appreciate and condemn forcefully subtle   foundational practices   that engender serious threat to peaceful coexistence in a pluralistic society. Hisbah   (Sharia police ) will not allow painted   Guinness trucks ply the federal roads in Kano.   And no one sees the danger   such   portends.
The local law that empowers Hisbah to destroy   cartons of beer in Kano is in manifest conflict with the constitution. To allow any   law supplant freedoms guaranteed by the constitution is to enthrone the sort of lawlessness that can   birth monsters likeBoko haram . And it is not because such moralism has no merits but because such a unilateralism is ontemptuous of   consensus and rule of law. I am a teetotaler because I believe that   a good Christian should give up alcohol but that doesn’t suggest that my understanding of the Bible should become sacrosanct public policy. When   the doctrine of one religion is allowed to censor others in a   free society,   peace becomes an illusion. Such tyrannical suppression of others doesn’t paint any religion in the best of lights.
In 2002 a Thisday journalist   was adjudged to have profaned prophet Mohammed. She   apologized. It is wrong to burn the Koran or to insinuate that Jesus had a girl friend. We must learn to respect other people’s faiths even in the exercise of our freedoms. But when a conflict arises, when we feel aggrieved   or wronged,   we must submit ourselves to the laws of the country .
To take the laws into our hands to exact vengeance is to promote violence and not peace. In   a supposed compliance with   his religious duties, which   for a muslim   should include the enthronement of peace ,   a deputy governor of Zamfara,   Aliyu Shinkafi passed a fatwa decreeing death for Ms Isioma Daniel. He disregarded the apology,   threw away the constitution and   quest for peace , leapt up in zealotry and ordered muslims to murder a Nigerian citizen whom he adjudged as satanic as Salman Rushdie.   Those were the days when politics was played with sharia in the north.
Hounded Isioma Daniel fled into exile helped by the UN refugees commission which incidentally has been rescuing   many Syrian muslims,   made     refugees by   the   apotheosis of brutal religious fundamentalism, ISIS. The Sultan of Sokoto, a peace minded muslim,   intervened and declared the fatwa out of order.   But the damage had been done,   seeds of intolerance had been sown,   tempers had flared, the   riots that ensued had zealots butcher and burn over 200 innocent   Nigerians and properties worth billions.
Shinkafi’s interpretation of the Koran is that in a society like Nigeria where people of different faiths have come to live in harmony the conduct of a Christian living far away from Zamfara can be moderated by the dictates of Islamic belief. And his idea of self righteousness is that it falls on him to order the   elimination   of the ‘infidel’? And what with the righteousness of self- appointed   Christian crusaders ,   ‘Army of God’,   who shoot   doctors and burn their abortion clinics in America?   Many   committed muslims disagreed with that interpretation of the Koran .
Such a blatant disregard for the constitution is the pivot of groups like boko haram .That man who ordered the killing of a fellow Nigerian went unpunished .He took an oath to uphold the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, defiled the oath and usurped the authority of the sultan who is the spiritual head of Muslims in Nigeria. He went on to become a governor. No consequences attached to him. They say when a mad man from Ikoyi meets the one from Ojuelegba he suspends his madness temporarily. Since Shekau came many have gone mute.
Political opportunists no longer mouth sharia. Since boko haram is not Islam one has to wonder if   those who forced Isioma Daniel to flee are muslims. But there was something else Shinkafi threw up.   Fanatics call the shots. He must   have considered the Sultan   too moderate , too secular to defend Islam adequately.   And since his boss ,Yerima, was out of the country he had to speak for muslims. Muslims cannot allow   extremists   claim the moral high ground and speak for Islam. They   cannot leave an intolerant minority to define the public’s perception of Islam.   Islam is peace.
A government official who decreed the death of another Nigerian is no   different from boko haram. Boko haram thrives on an interpretation of the Koran which the majority of muslims cannot accept. That interpretation rejects the   political supremacy of the constitution, insists on the forceful institution of an Islamic caliphate , and subordinates all rights and freedoms of all citizens to their brand of Islamic fundamentalism.   Even moderate muslims are not spared their condemnation.
The sort of religious politics played in Zamfara   and some other places could have   prepared the grounds for the sort of religious extremism that   birthed boko haram . Many who supported that   fatwa are today tearing their dresses disclaiming boko haram. Before Ms Daniel there was Mr Akaluka who wasn’t   as lucky. A friend who lived close to the   Akaluka’s in kano says Akaluka’s wife had used a piece of paper   with Islamic inscriptions, lying around,   to clean up her baby. Some passers by had noticed her and declared she had desecrated the Koran.
Before a mob could assemble ,neighbours who included good muslims, conversant with the religious temperament of Kano had sneaked away the family. News got to Mr Akaluka that his family was in some trouble and he headed home. He ran into the   mob but was saved by the police.   His reprieve was short-lived.   The mob regrouped, and with chants,   descended on the police station, pulled out Gideon   Akaluka who was in   police custody,   beheaded him . A   delirious procession   marched around Kano with the head of an innocent citizen held aloft a stick , trophy- like.   Those were definitely not muslims too.
In the West,   following Alquaeda and now   ISIS, muslims have become endangered species. In many places the muslim is sniffed and watched.   Because of these lunatics who are not muslims but pose as them, Muslims are regarded as potential terrorists and they now suffer grave injustices. And such aprofiling dehumanizes and   aggravates   social   tensions. Muslims have been vocal in pointing out that persons of other faiths   commit terrorist acts and do not attract any   blanket condemnation to their faiths.
They also point to widespread atrocities committed by Christians in the past in furtherance of Christianity. I sympathize with these muslims because they do not have to suffer or account for the criminal acts perpetrated by other fellows with whom they merely share a claimed religious identification. They should not be made to defend themselves. The point   has been made that Islamic radicalism that spawns terrorism affects less than   10% of muslims.   A few minority sects have been implicated. The bulk of muslims are ordinary   everyday people. Many are embodiments of tolerance.
I know Yoruba muslim fathers who have allowed their teenage daughters to convert to christianity. My own father who was a nominal Christian in my teenage years would never have accepted that. But the difference is that   while such muslims exist there exist those who chased away   my younger brother away from   a Katsina school during his youth service year. He led Christian corpers fellowship in a   government secondary school. A   female muslim student   came to him and wanted to learn about Jesus. He told her about Him and she wanted a bible and he gave her a small Gideon’s bible. A hornet’s nest had been inadvertently stirred. Next day parents congregated in the school , demanded his immediate expulsion.
The naïve youth corper didn’t know that Jesus could not be mentioned that freely in that public school. The principal, fearing for his safety, asked him to leave the school immediately. So much for national unity and religious tolerance. The sort of intolerance that casts Islam as being extremely hypersensitive does not portray Islam well. A certain     eagerness to attain     righteousness not by love and patience but   by recourse   to fanaticism and violence does not lend peacefulness to any   religion . And its not enough to say that Islam is   peace .
Those who live around you, neighbours, people of other faiths, should feel and enjoy   the peace. I   grew up in Nigeria, attended   a military school in the north, have many muslim friends, yet I walk past mosques with a little residual   dread. And I am not alone.   I am neither bigoted   nor paranoid. Many southerners in the north still approach Friday afternoons with caution.   And it shouldn’t be so.   People leaving the mosque ought to be spreading   love and goodness.   But the historical reality of many religious disturbances   in northern Nigeria has left many non muslims fearful of Fridays and mosques in the north.   That too can’t be Islam. Muslims must strive to make Islam seem as peaceful as it truly is, as welcoming as it should be.

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