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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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RETREAT AND RAGE |
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its nature, the ummah has to be conservative. It had no choice but
to close the door of jima (consensus) as soon the judicial structure
had been put in place by the four schools - the Shafi, the Maliki,
the Hanafi and the Hanbali. All subsequent attempts to permit
ijtihad 7 had to fail, especially in
the absence of caliphal power which could offset the hold of the
ulema. Political power can maintain a measure of equilibrium
vis-a-vis the ulema. But there are limits to it as well, as
Pakistanis have discovered. For dictators and populist leaders too
find it not only useful but also necessary to appeal to the Islamic
sentiment which remains pretty strong.
The ummah's hankering after a saviour
flows from its character and so does the commitment return to
pristine Islam or the golden age of Islam - the Medina period of the
Prophet and the first four rightly guided caliphs, three of
whom, incidentally, were murdered. Though a Shia and an Iranian,
Muslims were ready to hail Ayatollah Khomeini as Mahdi. The was with
Iraq cut him down to size. Saddam Hussain would have been a Muslim
hero if he had followed the invasion of Kuwait with that of Saudi
Arabia and thereby blocked a Western riposte. He is again trying to
recapture the imagination of fellow Muslims by his defiance of the
US and the UN and he may well succeed. |
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