On October 15, 1925, a sensational news was published on the first page of the then famous newspaper ‘Zamindar’ which shocked the readers.
It was a fatwa issued by Maulvi Didar Ali Alwari, the Khatib of Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore. Maulvi Deedar was a well-known religious scholar and mufti, and it was common for him to issue fatwas. Maulvi may have issued hundreds of fatwas in his lifetime, but he may not have imagined at that time that the threat of his fatwa would be heard even a century later.
This fatwa was about Allama Iqbal. That Iqbal, who at that time was not only overshadowing the Urdu-Persian literary scene of the subcontinent like the Himalayas, but he was also being discussed in the academic and literary circles of Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. Apart from Khusrau, Kabir, Waris Shah and Tagore, there is hardly any personality who has received such a great acceptance by both the people and the elite in the last thousand years of India, hence the strong reaction to this fatwa. came. People started saying that if Iqbal is also a kafir, then who is a Muslim?
Details will come later, read the fatwa first:
The names ‘Parvardgar’ and ‘Yazdan’ are specific mystics and avatars refer to the birth of God according to Hanod. Calling the inner form ‘Yazdan’ and ‘God’ Aftab is a clear disbelief. Moreover, the belief in the birth of God is also blasphemy and blasphemy against Moses and blasphemy against the elders of the religion. Therefore, unless he repents from these blasphemies, all Muslims should refrain from associating with him, otherwise they will be grave sinners.
Mohammad Didar Ali, Khatib of Wazir Khan Lahore Mosque
For those who complain about Maulvi Sahib’s Urdu being ‘thick’, there is a word for ‘Silis’ in Urdu (it is a different matter that the word ‘Silis’ itself has been thickened!) Disbelief is:
The words ‘Parvargar’ and ‘Yazdan’ are used only for God, hence calling the sun as Parvargar or Yazdan.
To say that God has taken birth
Insulting Musa (peace be upon him) or other religious leaders
Now the questions are whether Iqbal has really done these three mentioned things and if he did, can a fatwa of infidelity be imposed on him and moreover what was the background of the fatwa issued by Maulvi Didar?
As seen in the world in general, the matter is not as simple as it seems and has many layers which we will try to unravel. Actually Maulvi Sahib did not directly discover these ‘objectionable’ points from Iqbal’s speech, but he received a letter asking for his opinion. They
The letter is: ‘What do religious scholars and Amin Sharah Matin say about the issue that a person describes the sun with divine attributes in his poetry and asks for its meaning and does not believe in the Hereafter, like Hazrat Musa, the Jalil-ul-Qadr Prophet? mocking, shouting at the Ulemas and elders and remembering them with bad addresses, remembering a saint of the Hindus whom they believe to be an incarnation of God, with the words ‘Imam’ and ‘Light of Guidance’ and praising him. Have a wet tongue?
Is such a person on Islam or disbelief? Is it permissible or illegitimate to do business with him, sit down, dismiss him and interrupt him in every way? What is the ruling regarding those who do not?’
Later in this letter some of Iqbal’s poems were also presented which contain the above ‘controversial’ points:
O Aftab, give us wisdom Give light to the eyes of wisdom with your reflection
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There is nothing special about it Shajar Hajar also speaks to God
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These murshidans are angry, may God save the nation They are making the Muslims their honor by distorting them
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This is the miracle of this lamp of guidance Brighter than dawn is the evening of India
India is proud of the existence of Rama Ahl-e-Nazar believe that he is the Imam of India
Maulvi Didar wrote a fatwa in response to the same letter. It is noteworthy that this fatwa was published only in ‘Zamindar’ newspaper and Maulvi Sahib himself did not publicize it.
Take a look at the objections made by Maulvi Sahib. The Aftab Wale verses (we have given only one verse for the sake of brevity but there are four verses in the letter) are taken from Iqbal’s poem ‘Aftab-e-Sobh’, included in his book ‘Bang-e-Dara’.
This section contains related reference points (Related Nodes field).
This is not an original poem by Iqbal, but actually a translation of a Sanskrit prayer poem from the Rigveda. It is one of Iqbal’s early poems and was first published in 1903 in a magazine called ‘Makhzn’.
At that time, a note was also included with it that ‘The following verses are a translation of a very ancient and famous prayer of the Rigveda called Gayatri. In fact, this word refers to the sun which is supersensible and from which this material sun is consumed.’
In simple language, the sun that is being talked about in this poem is not the sun shining in the sky, but a symbol of goodness and goodness, which the sun also benefits from and the rest of the universe as well. Even in Islam, God is called the light of the universe, so this idea is not very understandable.
But incidentally, when this poem was included in Bang-e-Dara, this preface was deleted for some reason.
Moreover, Maulvi Didar has written in the fatwa that ‘Yazdan’ and ‘Parvargar’ are reserved only for ‘Zat-e-Janabar Bari’ i.e. Allah Ta’ala, but perhaps he did not consider that these words are not Arabic but Persian. . Yazdan has been used in the Parsi religion, while Lord is also used to refer to a type of wine.
Iqbal’s caution can be estimated from the fact that he used more Persian words than Arabic in this poem so that this poem could not conflict with Islamic beliefs.
As far as other poems are concerned, if fatwas continue to be imposed on such poems, then no Urdu-Persian poet will be able to escape from disbelief, rather many Sufi sages will also come under this wrap. Among Amir Khusrau, Maulana Rumi, Hafiz Shirazi, Baidal, Mir, Ghalib etc., such ‘fatwa-able’ poems are found in bulk.
Abdul Majeed Salik has written in his book ‘Zikr-i-Iqbal’ that ‘this fatwa caused an uproar throughout the country. Maulvi Didar Ali was slandered from all sides. Maulana Sulaiman Nadvi slammed this ignorant fatwa in ‘Zamindar’. An anonymous essayist responded to this fatwa in a reasoned article, i.e. by discussing each word of the quoted verses, he proved that even the suspicion of disbelief does not arise from them.
Abdul Majeed Salik further writes that ‘Maulvi Dedar Ali’s action seriously shocked the collective dignity of Islamic scholars because all classes of Muslims, scholars and common people, ancient, educated and modern educated people consider Allama Iqbal as a very sincere Muslim, a lover. Rasool, the healer of the nation, the supporter of the religion of Islam used to acknowledge and say that if according to our scholars, even a Muslim like Iqbal is an infidel, then who is a Muslim?’
Apart from this, Hakeem Ahmed Ali Feroze Puri also wrote articles against Maulvi Sahib in Zamindar and took a firm hold on his fatwa. Whom Saheb is called by Salik as an anonymous essayist, in other books his name is written as Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain (MA). He and Hakeem Ferozepuri raised the question that after this fatwa, Maulvi himself remained a Muslim or not.
Who was Maulvi Deedar?
Maulvi Didar was not a small personality but a very famous religious scholar of his time who belonged to the Barelvi sect and had the privilege of being directly discipled and mentored by Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi.
According to Zia Taiba website, he was born in 1852 in Alwar. After completing his religious education, he came to Lahore in 1907 and established a Madrasa here under the name of ‘Quot-ul-Islam’. In 1922, he was appointed the Khatib of the Wazir-e-Khan Mosque. He himself was a poet and used to write poetry in three languages: Arabic, Persian and Urdu. He died in 1935, three years before Iqbal’s death.
As mentioned earlier, Maulvi Sahib was quick to issue fatwas of disbelief. Before Iqbal, apart from famous Congress leader Dr. Saifuddin Kuchlu, the editor of ‘Zamindar’, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, had issued a fatwa of blasphemy on the basis of a poem.
Maulvi Didar was hanged?
We have already written that it is not a matter of two plus two four that Maulvi Deedar saw Iqbal’s poems and issued a fatwa. Another story emerges from the detail printed in the same issue of ‘Zamindar’. About how these poems reached Maulvi Deedar, it is written:
Seeing Maulvi Didar’s ‘excessive love of Takfir’, a lively and cheerful Muslim youth who likes to be known as ‘Pirzada Muhammad Siddique Saharanpuri’, sent the following Istifta (Questionnaire) to Maulvi Didar, which But Maulvi Didar Ali Sahib has frankly given a fatwa that such interpreters of the truth and the language of Islam are infidels and transgressors and those who try to meet him have been declared as grave sinners.
(Public Domain)
You have seen this questionnaire above, in which Maulvi Didar was asked to write Iqbal’s poems and ask his opinion about them. It is noteworthy that the poet’s name is not mentioned in this questionnaire, so it is assumed that Maulvi Didar wrote the fatwa without knowing the poet’s name.
Now here the question arises that who was the ‘good-natured’ questioner Pirzada Muhammad Siddique Saharanpuri who asked for a fatwa from Maulvi Sahib?
Khurram Ali Shafiq, the authoritative biographer of Iqbal, writes that in those days, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, the editor of Zamindar, and Ghulam Rasool Mehr, the deputy editor, both went out of the country, and the responsibility of the editorship of the newspaper fell on the shoulders of the young writer Abdul Majeed Salik. was According to Khurram Ali Shafiq, the seeker ‘in order to embarrass Maulvi Sahib, took a fatwa from him in such a way that the question was sent under a fictitious name, the name of Allama was not mentioned in the question. Instead of Allama’s most famous poems, he wrote some poems which were only published in books and magazines and were not read in public meetings.
Shafiq further writes that ‘the fatwa was obtained and published because Allama Iqbal was one of the few Muslims in India at that time against whom a fatwa of disbelief could not be imagined.’
As far as Pirzada who asked Maulvi Didar is concerned, it is presumed that he was Abdul Majid Salik himself.
Was only Abdul Majeed Salik responsible?
But our question is whether it is appropriate to put all the debris on the seeker? Is it not like that ‘Zamindar’ as an institution has conspired to make Maulvi Sahib a target? Finally Maulvi Sahib had issued a fatwa on Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, the owner and manager of ‘Zamindar’ and Maulana had also written a satire on him.
(In view of the fear of hurting people’s hearts, we cannot quote that verse here, but if anyone is interested, they can read it on page 328 of Khurram Ali Shafiq’s book ‘Iqbal: Dur-i Urooj’).
Therefore, we can hypothesize that perhaps the zamindar as an institution planned to degrade Maulvi Sahib, and at the time when this plan was executed, the manager and deputy manager of the institution were mysteriously out of the country. They had gone so that the letter would not come upon them.
Moreover, since such a project requires long planning, it is not surprising that a young editor, who is temporarily taking over the newspaper, would go out on his own without the institution’s blessing. Make such a big plan and implement it quickly.
Yellow journalism?
What the landlord as an institution did killed two birds with one arrow. Maulvi Didar was a target, but after printing such a dangerous and explosive news, the newspaper’s circulation must have seen a huge increase. Newspaper articles suggest that the matter had been heated for weeks, if not months.
Now the matter is that if Khurram Ali Shafiq’s theory is correct, then the ‘Zamindar’ did not ‘run’ the news but ‘created’ the news and for this, apart from Maulvi Didar, Allama Iqbal was also used. In an attempt to humiliate Maulvi Sahib and to increase the popularity of his newspaper, the artificial fatwa of disbelief on Iqbal, it is obvious that Iqbal must have suffered a severe mental blow. He has also expressed in a letter that fatwas of disbelief are being imposed on me.
However, it will not be out of place to say that Maulvi Didar’s rashness and habit of takfir harmed him and he fell into the trap that the ‘Zamindar’ prepared against him.
