Can anyone chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan in Pakistan or any of the Muslim nations? The answer is negative. In such cases, how and why a radical Muslim female student named Mushkan Khan has chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’ replicating Islamic State or Al Qaeda? Who are making Mushkan the Islamist poster girl by spreading her video on social media? Who are using Mushkan case in inciting Hindu-Muslim riot in India and even giving calls to waging jihad against India? The unfortunate and extremely disturbing answer is though simple, no one seems to put light on this extremely important issue.
In my opinion, Mushkan Khan’s chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ is no isolated or any spontaneous incident. It certainly is a pre-planned, well-orchestrated and part of a huge conspiracy against India and Hindus. But before analyzing this Mushkan case, we need to once again scrutinize activities of notorious Tablighi Jamaat and its speedy expansion of network in India.
While Assam government in India has shut down around 700 madrassas during the past several years, Tablighi Jamaat headquarters in New Delhi has already emerged into a major jihadist recruitment hub with hundreds of members of this dangerous organization taking oath of waging jihad against Hindus and Bharat (India). The ban on madrassas in Assam has led to a massive uproar in the pseudo Islamist coterie claimed as “secularists”.
Assam’s chief minister is anything but apologetic about having closed these madrassas. While many claims that this is an attack on the country’s secular fabric, the justification on why a secular government must fund religious studies of a particular faith system remains obscure.
It may be mentioned here that, Saudi Arabia, which is recognized as the leader of the Muslim nations has banned activities of Tablighi Jamaat.
Despite such bold actions by a Muslim nation, policymakers in several non-Muslim nations including Bharat (India) are feeling shy or showing reluctance in banning Tablighi Jamaat. Bangladesh, a country that allows Tablighi Jamaat in holding annual iztema (congregation) which is attended by millions of Tablighi followers from around the world too is reluctant in banning this antechamber of jihadism and radical Islamic terror, despite the fact of Jamaat-e-Islami, Hefazat-e-Islam, Ansar Al Islam, Al Qaeda, Islamic State and Pakistani spy agency Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) using this organization as the most convenient vessel of spreading terrorism. According to credible sources, speakers during the Tablighi Jamaat congregations are regularly giving instigation to the members for waging jihad against ruling Awami League government in Bangladesh, secularist forces as well as “agents of India”.
While some people try to defend madrassas and Tablighi Jamaat stating these are innocent entities, there are innumerable incidents that demonstrate that madrasas often propagate the jihad ideology; their indoctrinated pupils frequently graduate to become recruits of various jihadist outfits. Despite abundant evidence of jihad preaching and recruitment within the four walls of numerous madrasas, India for a considerable period wrongly treated these Koranic schools as harmless educational units.
In my opinion, especially after the fall of Afghanistan into the grips of Taliban jihadists and Pakistan-patronized terrorists, madrassas in onwards become key recruitment and breeding grounds of radical Islam, religious hatred and jihad.
Following ban on activities of Tablighi Jamaat in Saudi Arabia, a section of the Muslim media has been running orchestrated propaganda with the agenda of proving this blood-seeking jihadist vessel as an innocent entity. In India, the size and strength of this dangerous group are on alarming rise, while the authorities concerned are yet to take steps in outlawing Tablighi Jamaat in the country. Instead, Tablighi Jamaat headquarters in New Delhi is witnessing rise in the number of followers of this groups.
According to the US officials, In February last year, it cracked down on the centers run by the Jamaat. Tablighi Jamaat is an offshoot of Islam’s fundamentalist and hardline Deobandi sect. Deobandis teach and practice a fundamentalist, exclusivist form of Islam, which blends easily with extremism and terror. Thus, laying a fertile ground for the spread of radical ideology. In the West, Tablighi Jamaat has been carefully watched by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Jamaat’s vague recruitment processes and secret and dubious financial practices make it particularly challenging for agencies and financial watchdogs to track its activities. But there is also no doubt that, even without the direct terror links, Tablighi Jamaat has radicalized entire communities across the globe.
Also, many Western jihadists have some involvement with Tablighi Jamaat at some point in their radicalization. For instance, the “Shoe bomber” Richard Reid, who in 2001 tried to set off a bomb on a commercial aircraft, and John Walker Lindh, the American citizen captured by US forces with Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001. And Jose Padilla, a US Citizen convicted in 2007 for conspiring to commit murder and fund terrorism. Once were members of Tablighi Jamaat. In Europe and North Africa, a large number of terrorists arrested for the Casablanca blasts of 2003 were also found to have connections with the local chapters of the Tablighi Jamaat.
Tablighi Jamaat claims their only aim is to guide fellow Muslims to be good and dedicated believers and refrain from any political activity. But that is true as well that movement has offered a place where jihadist spotters can look for potential recruits. These facilitators often offer enthusiastic new or rededicated Muslims who have shown interest in political Islam and Jihad in their private conversation a more active way to live and develop their faith. Once a facilitator identifies such candidates, he often will segregate them from the main congregation in the mosque or community centre and put them into small prayer circles or study groups where they can be more easily exposed to jihadist ideology. Also, it is reported that members of terrorist groups Like- Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) regularly attend the Tablighi Jamaat’s congregation in Raiwind, which is the headquarter of Tablighi Jamaat in Pakistan, where they hand out recruitment pamphlets. Also, Tablighi Jamaat members have taken the initiative to create or actively facilitate the Jihadi groups. Like Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HuM), a Kashmir-based terrorist organization best known for hijacking an Air India passenger jet in 1998 and murdering a busload of French engineers in Karachi in 2002. It is believed to be the exclusive creation of Tablighi Jamaat members with the assistance of Pakistani intelligence services. Also, when the Taliban fought its way across Afghanistan in the 1990s. Support from Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan was invaluable. Many Tablighi students were likely among the volunteers sent across the border to aid Mullah Omar’s jihad against Afghanistan’s warlords.
During the past four decades, activities of Tablighi Jamaat continue to spread throughout both rural and urban areas with hundreds of thousands of people joining this jihadist vessel. In most cases, Tablighi Jamaat members maintain direct links with Al Qaeda, Islamic State (ISIS) and similar radical Islamic terrorist groups. It serves the purpose as an important vessel for spreading religious extremism, anti-Semitism and jihad. Most alarming fact is, Tablighi Jamaat’s male and female members are going door-to-door mostly targeting housewives and children with the nefarious agenda of poisoning their minds with anti-Semitism, religious hatred and jihadist cruelty.
Security hazards posed by burqa
Gradually those orthodox burqas mainly used in Afghanistan and several parts of Pakistan, particularly Peshawar are replacing those a “moderate” type of burqas. In Pakistani Peshawar state, which is close to the border with Afghanistan, are basically dominated by ethnic Pashtun populace.
These orthodox burqas are known as pinhole shuttlecock burqa, through which the identity of the person under the garb cannot be identified. For this reason, pinhole shuttlecock burqas are becoming popular amongst the terrorists, especially suicide attackers as carrying bombs beneath these Islamist attires is very much convenient.
Now, Afghanistan already been slipped into the grips of Taliban jihadists, use of burqas may become a major issue, particularly when activities of radical Islamic terrorist outfits would significantly increase in the country. And this Islamist attire will become a huge headache for those nations who currently are welcoming hundreds and thousands of refugees from Afghanistan.
Even few years ago, Muslim women and girls never wore the burqa in Sri Lanka. But in the recent time, wearing burqa has become a sign of religious extremism. Under such circumstance, Sri Lankan lawmakers are compelled in initiating laws – banning burqa as well as Islamic schools. Sri Lankan Minister for Public Security Sarath Weerasekera has signed documents outlawing the burqa, but they need to be approved by the cabinet of ministers and Parliament where the government has a two-thirds majority to see its bills through.
At a media conference, Weerasekara said: “The burqa is something that directly affects our national security…this [dress] came into Sri Lanka only recently. It is a symbol of their religious extremism”.
Weerasekera also said the government plans to ban more than 1,000 Islamic schools that he said were flouting national education policy.
“Nobody can open a school and teach whatever you want to the children,” he said.
The wearing of burqas was temporarily banned in 2019 after the Easter Sunday bomb attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 260 people. Two local Muslim groups that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) group have been blamed for the attacks at six locations — two Roman Catholic churches, one Protestant church and three top hotels.
Although some Western counterterrorism experts believe, Koranic and Islamic schools are not responsible for breeding jihadists and promoting radical Islam, if we look into the track records of global jihadism, we shall clearly understand – these religious schools are playing key role in radicalizing Muslims as well as encouraging students in waging jihad against “non-Muslims”.
The world is gradually getting united on one agenda on combating terrorism and Jihad. International community has reason now to speak out against Jihad as for past several years, multiple forms of terror acts are spreading in the world mostly by religious fanatics or Jihadists. Most of the countries in the world are falling victims of radical Islamic jihad.
In most of the nations in the world, while Islamic schools and mosques are being regularly used for breeding jihadism, a group named Tablighi Jamaat, that pretends to be an innocent entity has actually the agenda of spreading the message of jihad amongst the people. In a number of terrorist activities in the world, Tablighi Jamaat’s involvements were clearly proved.
Main objective of Tablighis is to encourage people towards religious conversion. The next agenda is instigating Jihadist notion. Third is ousting democracy.
As I have been repeatedly saying – madrassas are the breeding grounds of Jihadists; it is unknown to many that, only 26 per cent of the students coming out of Koranic madrassas ultimately find a job with any mosque as cleric or assistants to clerics, while the larger segment of such madrassa educated people with high Jihadist brain-wash just melt into the society. A significant portion of these madrassa-educated population simply disappear and may find ways to any of the foreign nations – under the disguise of workers. But of course, they always remain committed to promoting radical Islam, religious hatred and jihad. For every nation, having madrassa-educated people in the society – are certainly taking a high risk of pushing the country towards a total uncertainty of radical Islamic atrocities.
Research-scholar Daniel Pipes, commenting on burqa and hijab said, burqas and niqabs should be banned in all public spaces because they present a security risk. Anyone might lurk under those shrouds – female or male, Muslim or non-Muslim, decent citizen, fugitive, or criminal – with who knows what evil purposes.
One of the July 2005 London bombers, Yassin Omar, 26, took on the burqa twice – once when fleeing the scene of the crime, then a day later, when fleeing London for the Midlands.
Other male burqa-clad fugitives include a Somali murder suspect in the United Kingdom, Palestinian killers fleeing Israeli justice, a member of the Taliban fleeing NATO forces in Afghanistan, and the murderer of a Sunni Islamist in Pakistan.
Burqas and niqabs also facilitate non-political criminal behavior. Unsurprisingly, favorite targets of robberies include jewelry stores (examples come from Canada, Great Britain, and India) and banks (Great Britain, Bosnia, and two 2007 attacks in Philadelphia). Curiously, in Kenya, street prostitutes have donned buibuis (which reveals slightly more of the face than a niqab), the better to blend into the night population and avoid the police.
Expressing the universal fear aroused by these garments, a recent Pakistani horror film, Zabahkhana (meaning “slaughterhouse” in Urdu) includes a sadistic cannibalistic killer figure dubbed “Burqa Man.”
The practice of covering the face derives from tribal customs that build on Islamic law, not the law itself. For example, some tribeswomen in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Kharj region put on the burqa at puberty, then never take it off – not for other women, not for their husbands, and not for their children. These family members typically see the woman’s face only when viewing her corpse.
For the sake of national security and safeguarding sovereignty of India, government should immediately impose ban on Tablighi Jamaat, burqa and hijab.
