Babri Masjid: Opportunity for Muslims: Spiritual Meditations

Muslims have gone through a traumatic period in the last several years. They have spent a lot of time in introspection. They have shown great wisdom and maturity in fending off severe and very brazen provocations. One hopes that it is this maturity that is now beginning to be reflected....    This brings me to my main plea—forgiveness. Forgiveness is the essence of both the Muslim and Hindu spiritual traditions. It is the only way out of the vicious and very debilitating grip of bad karma. It is our belief that one has to always pay individual or collective karmic debts in this or any subsequent incarnations or on the Day of Judgement. Both Hindu and Muslim spiritual traditions consider God as the greatest teacher, this world a great school, the events that involve us in this mayajaal (illusionary world) as messages.     What could this Great Teacher be teaching us in this section of the school through the great Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi drama? Perhaps the all-important lesson of forgiveness. It may take us years, decades, centuries or millennia to learn this lesson. But learn we will. There is no escaping. God is a very determined teacher. We have the option to learn the lesson now. Let us exercise it.     I have a special plea to make to fellow Muslims, a plea I have never made before. Many reasonable Hindu friends asked me in the last few years of strife: why can't Muslims make a gift of the Ramjanamsthan to the Hindus? What is the big deal? I had just one answer. No gift could be or should be made at gunpoint. Give-me-this-gift-or-I-will-snatch-it- from-your-hands-anyway is no way of seeking gifts. A gift of Ramjanamsthan at that point would probably have been cowardice.     But the situation has changed now. The gun has been taken away from the hands of our spiritually evolving brothers. The law of the land has asserted itself. ...    Wallowing in despair would be pointless. How long will we go on commemorating the follies of our neighbours on every December 6? Nursing wounds is no sign of maturity. Wounds should be allowed to heal in a natural process. By wallowing in anger and self-pity, we will be making the same mistake as some of our Hindu brothers did.   Laws of Karma    Laws of Karma sanction one great privilege. Either of the parties to a dispute can set both the parties free of the karmic debt by exercising their right to forgive the other party and thus grow spiritually. Every calamity is said to contain the seeds of an equal or greater opportunity. The demolition of the mosque gives us an opportunity to strengthen our stake in secularism, peace and democracy.      The Babri mosque is no more. It has become a victim of Hindu-Muslim negative egos. Many precious lives have been lost in the process. The ideal solution would be that both the communities come together, forgive each other and mutually decide what to do about that piece of God's land. Let us remember that there is no mosque there now. The memory of the mosque remains. The Babri mosque can never come back. Its demolition was perpetrated by a section of misguided Hindus referred to by the Supreme Court as criminals.      But Muslims should never forget that the vast majority of Hindus clearly disapproved of it. They neither rewarded with votes in the subsequent elections the BJP which was apparently responsible for the demolition, nor the Congress which had started the whole dispute in the first place in a clear bid to garner Hindu votes.   Reconciliation    If this mutual forgiveness and reconciliation does not take place — and if present Hindu and Muslim leaders are considered representatives of their respective communities, it is not likely to happen — ordinary people of both communities must make their presence felt and come out openly for peace at all costs. If that too does not happen, we Muslims should thank God for providing us with this unique opportunity to exercise our option of forgiveness and making a gift of a piece of God's land on the specific condition that it be used for nothing but building a place of worship, so that its sanctity is maintained.       I know this is not going to be easy. Forgiveness is never easy, except for the spiritually evolved. But I don't think we have any other option. We have many things, important things to do. We just cannot afford to remain embroiled in inconsequential disputes. The renowned Islamic scholar, Late Maulana Ali Mian Nadwi had reacted to the opening of Babri Masjid locks the following day in these very sensible words: "Many mosques are in the possession of other people." And indeed they are.      There were many mosques in East Punjab of the pre-Partition days? But very few are left as mosques today? A Punjabi Hindu friend of mine complained of so many mosques having been converted into gurudwaras and temples. His Muslim friend (not me, some great soul) reacted: "But they are still places of worship. There is only one God, after all. No matter what you believe in, you cannot but worship the same God." Amen. -- Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam

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