DANGER OF SENSATIONALIST CLAIMS

This letter from Suleman Nagdi appears in today's Leicester Mercury, responding to Manzoor Moghal's First Person column, published in the Mercury on 13 December (and posted in full on this blog).

Danger of sensationalist claims

I write in relation to the article 'Understanding the history of religious conflict' (Mailbox, December 13) by Manzoor Moghal.

Brother Manzoor makes certain claims; I ask from whose history is he writing from? If we learn anything from history, it's that history portrays nothing in a positive light, only that it reports what was depending on which side you were on. Both religion and race have played important and sometimes deeply interconnected roles in Indian history for that matter worldwide. Religion was used to justify both segregation and desegregation.

The writer makes a number of charges against the Deobandi school of thought which require closer examination. The link to the Taliban is an interesting one especially when the vast majority of Taliban foot soldiers as well as the leadership have never set foot in India, let alone Deoband. To simply associate orthodoxy in practice with violent extremism is a very dangerous claim. Most of Al Qaeda's ideology and origins are not in imperialist India but developments in Arabia and parts of Africa in the 20th century.

The author unfortunately makes the sensationalist claim that "Historically Islam and the West have been locked in conflict for centuries". He is locked in a mind-set. For example, nearly three million Muslims perished during the first and second world wars. The recent Remembrance Day commemorations reminded us of their efforts. Islam through science and the arts has contributed a great deal towards enriching the very societies we now live in.

In relation to the division of Islam with Hinduism and Sikhism, the writer is short-sighted because members of these three faiths have lived together, migrated together, worked together and celebrated together for centuries in the Asian sub-continent and Africa.

To do justice to the subject we need to create an unbiased approach at the same time recognising that alternative views exist, it is very easy to blame the "Wahabist founded Deobandi school of thought" or for that matter any other school of thought.

We are already aware that extremists in all their ugly disguises come from many sources, in many cases through vulnerability, be it mental health, environment, change of circumstances or a journey an individual takes. We should be spending our energy in creating an atmosphere of working together to root out extremism in whatever disguise it comes from rather than making sensationalist claims.

Suleman Nagdi, Leicester