Why Mufti Shumail Nadvi’s debate with Javed Akhtar was avoidable 

The video featuring a recent debate over “Does God Exist” between Islamic scholar Mufti Shumail Nadvi and celebrated poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar is breaking the internet.
Seeing the celebratory comments of Muslims over a young Mufti (one who is trained to deliver fatwas) “outsmarting” a self-confessing Mulhid (atheist), one is puzzled yet not surprised.
One is puzzled because the community has not conquered a new nation. Nor has the young Mufti helped win Muslims yet another Battle of the Badar (victory over this battle led by Prophet Muhammad was a turning point in the life of the nascent Muslim faith).

The young Mufti acquired the art of public speaking and lacing his arguments with philosophical thoughts and logic discussed by scholars in an era when it was needed to prove that there is a divine power which rules the world. His education, first at Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, Lucknow and subsequently at the International Islamic University Malaysia where he is a doctoral student enables the Mufti to defend God. Many of his arguments may sound alien to those who have never stepped into a madrassa or an Islamic seminary. Or never tried to know what they teach at the madrassas.

Akhtar was educated at secular institutions in Lucknow, Aligarh and Bhopal. An intelligent and argumentative mind, his knowledge is mostly self-taught and he is known as a celebrated poet, lyricist-scriptwriter who speaks his mind. And he speaks boldly and fearlessly. When I think of Akhtar, I am often reminded of a couplet of the poet Allama Iqbal:

Zahide tang nazar ne mujhe kafir jana/
Aur kafir yeh samajhta hai Musalman hoon main

This is difficult to translate, but I go by what famous scholar-politician Dr Rafiq Zakaria wrote in my notebook once:

The narrow-minded Muslims think I am a kafir/To the communal non-Muslims, I am a Muslim.
Though his son US-based noted journalist-author Fareed Zakaria said he is glad that his father is not there in today’s India because he would have been deeply disturbed, many of us miss Dr Zakaria every moment. But that deserves a separate essay. Woh kabhi aur.

Akhtar epitomises the dilemma Iqbal speaks of India this famous couplet.

Akhtar has faced this dilemma most of his public life. He is an avowed atheist, liberal and a noted public intellectual. He has faced flak from both conservative Muslims and communal Hindus because he doesn’t pull punches when it comes to attacking bigotry and crassly communal utterances or actions. Though he is against purdah, he slammed Nitish Kumar for pulling down a woman’s hijab recently. There are innumerable occasions when Akhtar stood against Muslim extremism and the Talibani mindset.

For all his acquired abilities, unlike the Mufti who honed the skills of arguing as part of the curricula at seminaries, Akhtar cannot be expected to argue with a deeply religious man who was nurtured to defend God.
What is the purpose of a madrassa? Its basic aim is to create individuals who can protect and promote Deen-E-Haq. What is Deen-E-Haq? This, according to Islamic theology, is true religion as taught by the Prophet Muhammad who, according to the Muslim belief, is the final and last of the Prophets God sent down to the earth. So, the basic job of a Maulvi or one taught at a madrassa is not to proselytise but to protect and promote the idea that God is one and Prophet Muhammad is God’s messenger.

The debate was about whether God exists. Why do Muslims believe that the “God” debated means only the God they worship? Why does the omnipresent, all-powerful God need to be defended by we mortals?

Any argument between someone who does not believe in God and one who defends God with a missionary zeal will always remain inconclusive.

This debate was needless for many reasons.

First, there was no such public demand for such a debate from religious groups or organisations representing atheists. There may have been some individuals seeking to make Akhtar enter this “debating arena”. They might have felt an urge to bring Akhtar in a duel where what in popular Hindustani is called “doodh ka doodh paani ka paani” could be achieved.

This munazra or polemic is part of the mediaeval practices where scholars tried to prove supremacy over one another’s faiths or religious dogma at instigations. There was no such provocation for such a widely publicized debate.

In modern times, especially in contemporary India, we need to discuss and debate our everyday issues rather than obsolete, irrelevant topics.

Muslims, many contemporary Indian scholars have flagged, face existential threats. Mob lynchings, bulldozing of houses and other properties belonging to Muslim accused whose offences are yet to be proved by the courts beg debates and discussions more than the polymic over whether God exists or not.

Looking at today’s Muslim psyche, one can easily understand why there is so widespread joyful reception of a debate between a Mufti and an atheist poet-public intellectual. Their confidence battered due to political marginalization, calls of economic boycotts by the lunatic fringe, mocking ang jibes hurled at them even by some elected representatives–remember that shameful comment by a minister against Colonel Sofia Qureshi whom the Modi government admirably chose to lead media briefing during Operation Sindoor?–Muslims in India desperately need inspirational characters for leadership. Failed by myopic, opportunistic Muslim leaders, the community desperately looks for someone who can salvage their respect and dignity. Many see Mufti Shumail Nadvi such a “hero” and the long-awaited ideal Muslim.
How misled these Muslims are in choosing their leaders and heroes?
Not very long ago, some of us were startled by the “hero’s welcome” a Big Boss winner received by a huge crowd of Muslim youths at Dongri area in Mumbai. This stand-up comedian has laughed his way to the banks, buying, according to one of his neighbours, a big house in an upscale neighbourhood. Most of his cheerleaders who crammed the narrow Dongri streets continue to live in infrastructure-starved ghettos. When you lack genuine leaders and heroes, you do make comedians your heroes. And you do hail Muftis who “outwit” atheists at live debates as long-awaited saviours.

Noted Islamic scholar Dr Zafrul Islam Khan–a recent English translation of the Quran by him is being widely hailed as a milestone–has rightly slammed this Shumail vs Akhar debate. “This was a needless debate as there are many issues crying for debates and discussions,” he said.

The many cheerleaders of the Mufti whose receptions at Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama Lucknow and Darul Uloom Deoband, two of the most famous Islamic seminaries in the subcontinent, need to focus on empowering Muslims with scientific temperament. They need to update their curriculum and reform pedagogy.

Many within the community and beyond have expressed concern that this debate might have created another Dr Zakir Naik who made a career, and according to his own public admission, huge wealth out of public speeches.
I remember noted Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan once telling me that he disapproved of Dr Zakir Naik’s style of arguing with preachers of other religions because of his determination to prove that “Islam is the best religion.” “This is not the right method of preaching of a true daee (one who gives an invitation to faith). This is the way of polemicists,” Maulana Wahiduddin Khan once told me.

Mufti Shumail is young and spirited. Time is on his side. He, as former chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University and Tablighi Jamaat’s ideologue and a Jamaati Zafar Sareshwala suggests, should moderate his thoughts, tone down his public speaking and avoid acquiring the reputation of a munazra baaz or polemicist as Dr Zakir Naik did. There is a lot that young Shumail Nadvi can do with his thoughts, actions and speeches. There is no price in flogging a dead horse like debating if God exists?
He will be doing a disservice to the multicultural society like India by promoting confrontational views. He only has to fall back in his backyard for inspiration. For decades, many Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama scholars have produced freedom fighters and scholars who have preached Islam compatible with multicultural India. An idea of India created by confluence and co-mingling of ideas and thoughts over centuries.

And Javed Akhtar sahab, as his friend and senior member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board Kamal Faruqui, suggested, should turn down invitations to such useless debates. We need him to take on and “punch” with rational thoughts and views the crassly communal and divisive forces. Inside Tv studios and elsewhere.

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