We religious people are superstitious. If we look at the early seeds of Darul Uloom Deoband, we see great personalities like Sheikh Ul Hind, Hazrat Thanvi, Hazrat Kashmiri, Hazrat Madani, Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi, Mufti Kifayatullah, Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Maulana Aizaz Ali and Qari Tayyab Sahib. Among them, three, in particular, are figures who are the epitome of the mainstream of knowledge that originates from Madinah and reaches Samarqand. My reference is to Sheikh Al Hind, Hazrat Thanvi and Hazrat Kashmiri. Also, regarding Hazrat Thanvi among them, I have this thought-out opinion that there is great negligence in relation to his literature that it has not been transferred into the Arabic language so far.
Even his school of thought may not be aware that Hazrat Thanvi is the only person in the entire history of Deoband whose teachings are based on human psychology. Then if we see the universality of teachings, there is not a single act of the daily life of a human being that is not guided by the pen of Hazrat Thanvi. Just think about the person who has not left even the manners of writing a letter and replying to it, what would he have left? We were only 10 years old when we read his two books on Etiquette of Life and Etiquette of Society and today the influence of these books remains. If you look carefully at Hazrat Thanvi’s work, it will be clear that he had two things in mind. One is that new additions should be made on specific scientific topics. And the second is to arrange for easy guidance of religion for the common Muslim resident. As if Hazrat Thanvi was not only focused on the work that could only be used by scholars. Rather, he was writing for the common man who could only read the Urdu language.
If we look at the situation after the establishment of Pakistan, the total number of students in the class in which our father visited Hadith in Banori Town was 18. Among these eighteen were Mufti Ahmad Rahman, Dr. Habibullah Mukhtar, Dr. Abdul Razzaq Iskandar, Maulana Inayatullah Khan Shaheed. But now, if you look at it, every year hundreds of students graduate from each school and get pass. The biggest tragedy is that the taste for “research” does not even exist, let alone a hobby. In our view, knowledge services have been greatly damaged by two factors. One is the Afghan wars and the other is organizational culture. The title of “Commander” has become more attractive in place of Scholar. It has become more desirable to become “Quaid Millat Islamia” instead of a researcher. This culture has had such a profound impact that we have even changed the identity of the school. We are now proud to introduce our seminary under the title of Cantonment and Fort. Do you know how much these things are having a devastating effect on the psychology of our students? Even our youngest student gets a message from him that he has to “fight” after graduation. So when it is finished, it starts looking not at libraries and libraries but at Afghanistan, Kashmir and Palestine.
Those who cannot afford it become part of the scheme to fight the state. The one whose nature doesn’t match the gunpowder begins to collect the “zadarah” to fight with other weapons. He who does not have the courage to do so finds a target to pull his legs within the religion itself. And it is the effect of this culture of fighting that we see abusive situations from these people on Facebook as well. The poor person who is not even aware of the etiquette of talking to a man of his father’s age has also taken the mission of “defending Islam” on his shoulders on Facebook. However, at the age of four to five, a person learns how to talk to adults.
The level of ignorance we are spreading can be gauged from the fact that our elders are giving interpretations of dreams through the mail and online posts. How can we interpret the dream of a person whom we have not even seen in life? It is among the impossibilities. Because the same dream can be interpreted differently by two different people. For example, if a gentleman sees the call to prayer in a dream, then the interpretation is good, if a bad person sees it, the interpretation is bad.
It has been many years since we participated in a feast here in Karachi. A young man happily announced that he was getting married. At the same time, he also told that he was asked to marry the girl he intended to marry. I saw in the dream that the girl was performing ablution in the mosque. When I told the dream to my Prophet, he said that she is a very virtuous girl, marry her.
We were shocked and said “Don’t marry her, this girl is going to die” but the young man didn’t agree. Because the interpretation of his choice was given by him who has been considering himself as the third such person after Ibn Hajar and Allama Kashmiri who got the understanding of Bukhari. As a result, the girl died in the first year of marriage.
A few days ago, my brother Sahibzada Zia Nasir sent a book containing the biography of Allama Kashmiri. In its opening pages, a dream was mentioned in the background of Allama Kashmiri’s departure from Deoband to Dhabil, so he barely managed to continue studying, but when on page 51, on the occasion of his death, white turbans were dropped from the sky in the courtyard. Stopped reading there and deleted the PDF. The situation of religiosity is that the followers of the religion which forbids hypocrisy are now drawing Salafis in front of Baitullah and putting them on social media. And we present the dream as if we have left behind even the people of the early ages in religious and academic services. If you look at the merits attributed to these personalities, it seems that Hasan Basri and Safian Thauri were ordinary people. If you see the dreams of their spoons, it seems that Ghazali and Razi might have been street-playing lasses in the street. And we are the ones who are stuck with their myths. Not only did they sit quietly, but it is a sign of boldness that just four years ago, the dream in which a Hazrat sitting in the Haram was telling that the good news of Imran Khan’s government had been given. Today, the country is standing on the edge of destruction at the hands of Imran Khan, or not? Does anyone have the courage to go and hold the neck of the gentleman who created this destruction?
One of our constant pride is that we are very religious. And the situation is that the introduction of our Fiqh Al-Asr and Ibn Hajar-e-Waqt included the fact that people are disrespected in a very strong way. A well-informed student claimed to us that his Hazrat Mastun leads a virtuous life. We asked, do they go to their rooms to visit the sick students in their own seminary? Not only the language of the student but also the face was covered. Our situation is that the last Messenger of Allah, PBUH, said, “Always look for your neighbours are they hungry?”, while we read Bukhari and as a punishment, we also stopped the students from eating?” It is as if those whom they themselves consider as guests of the Messenger of God would stop eating. Subhan Allah, what can you say about this host? The beggar who begged us on the street was good. The beggar replied, Allah has promised me food, He has taken responsibility for it.
We are of the opinion that the new generation coming out of madrasahs came out of these myths. Instead of becoming a Muslim, the General made it his priority to become a scholar of religion. Rather than being a part of donation schemes, he should commit himself to academic research. Instead of crowds of people, he should develop a taste for sitting in rows of books. Don’t wake up in the morning and think about the dreams of the past night, but keep in mind the demands of the day ahead. After reciting the four Nafils, don’t fall into the trap of a white-turbaned person descending from the sky, but think about how to convey the message of goodness too as many as possible out of millions of people.
