Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the young Bengali Muslim 'laptop Jihadi' from Kolkata was arrested in Bangalore (India) a couple of days back. Mehdi was working in an MNC there. He comes from a middle class family and has a bachelor degree in electronics. Mekhail Biswas, father of Mehdi, quite reasonably, doubted that it could be a case of 'mistaken identity'. The same reaction we observed from the father of Bangladeshi (Jatrabari, Dhaka) student in US who was arrested as potential terrorist last year. A father cannot think anything bad about his son. No father will first like to accept the fact that his son has advanced stage of 'cancer'. The denial comes naturally. All sensible persons will empathize with Mekhail. But reality is too bitter.
Mehdi has been a self-styled active propagandist of ISIS through twitter since 2011. He went to Bangalore during 2012. So his indoctrination must have taken place in West Bengal. Mehdi aspired to be an ISIS strategist and not a Jihadi foot soldier. Though presently the 'area of operation' of ISIS is restricted to Iraq and Syria, its 'area of influence' spreads far and wide including India. This is an ominous sign for India.
The Indian constitution gives equal rights to the followers of all religions for the practice and promotion of their religions. If Mehdi argues in the court of law that he was observing his religious obligation only (by citing the Jihadi quotations from Qur'an and Hadith), how Indian judiciary will respond? Punishing Mehdi for Jihadi activities will be against his fundamental right as Indian Muslim.
Indian constitution speaks in a language that sometime becomes counter-productive. Generally speaking Indian constitution is too magnanimous for certain group of its citizens to understand the fact of secularism. This magnanimity is often taken as Hindu weakness by Islamist terrorists. These terrorists do not have any specific face to discern them from others. This has made the situation extremely complex. Mehdi is the tip of ice berg. Within 2 days of his arrest, hundreds of twitters have protested against his arrest and some have even threatened with revenge. Then there is another big unseen group of Jihadi sympathizers in India.
In India, the rampant vote bank politics, lack of expertise in modern intelligence gathering, absence of determination to act and wishful thinking that 'all is well' can lead to chaos and even civil war in the country in near future. 'Hindu Talibans' are just waiting for some excuses and many foolish Indian Muslims like Mehdi are determined to give them such excuses on platter.
To understand the Mehdi's action, let us relook at some aspects of Islam:
- Qur'an was compiled as a book during the time of Caliph Uthman about 20 years after the death of Mohammad to diffuse confusions about the variations among its different versions. After compilation, all other versions were burnt. Discovery of Sana'a manuscript of Qur'an in 1972 testifies to the fact that variations in Qur'an existed truly.
- Why revelations from Allah have variation?
- 'Qur'an is the revelation from Allah'; so said Mohammad. 'Mohammad was the messenger of Allah': so says the Qur'an.
- Islam is perpetually unable to come out of this circular fallacy.
- "There is no Allah but Allah". Similarly, 'there is no Mohammad but Mohammad'.
- Oneness of Allah is actually an extension of absoluteness of Mohammad.
- In Islam, faith in one and only Allah is not enough to be a Muslim. Accepting Mohammad as 'messenger of Allah' is another crucial prerequisite to be fulfilled to be a Muslim.
- In Islam, Allah is not independent of Mohammad.
- As per Qur'an, Islam is the only true religion.
- Hatred toward other religions is inbuilt in Islam.
- Qur'an and Hadith are prescriptive in nature.
- This makes Islam obligatory (including terrorist activities) in the name of religion.
- Qur'an glorifies Arab people.
- That limits Islam within Arabia. The non-Arab Muslims are cultural slaves of Arab Muslims.
- Qur'an has no reference about Sharia. It was codified by Ullema on the basis of Qur'an and Sunna during 8th and 9th century AD.
- Sharia is manmade and cannot be the infallible law of Allah.
- The Qur'an does not explicitly mention any punishment for blasphemy. However, the Sharia considers blasphemy against the Prophet a more severe offense than blasphemy against Allah. Repentance can lead to forgiveness by Allah when HE is blasphemed, but as the Prophet is no longer alive, forgiveness is not possible when the Prophet is blasphemed, and the Muslim community must punish his blasphemy by avenging blasphemer's death.
- Even Ullema did not hesitate to put Mohammad ahead of Allah.
- Blind and unquestionable faith in Allah and Mohammad is the essence of Islam. This blind faith (the other name of 'ignorance') makes Islam safe in a big proportion of Muslims of Indian sub-continent.
- Where ignorance is bliss, wisdom is curse.
- Some of the verses of Qur'an are really violent in nature.
- Advocacy of such violence in Islam kindles the crude and violent animal instinct in many Muslims to be involved in terrorist activities irrespective of their educational or socio-economic status.
In spite of the few above mentioned limitations of Islam (all religions have limitations), Mehdi was trying to fulfill his religious obligation for Ummah by doing propaganda for Jihad of ISIS through twitter. But………., you know what I mean!