"Red Maulana" Bhashani

 

بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا سيدي يا رسول الله

وعلى آلك واصحابك يا سيدي يا نور الله

In the 20^th century the Muslim World’s embracing of many un-Islamic, Western philosophies and ideologies accelerated. Many Muslims thirstily pounced upon the European ideology known as socialism. The basic principle of socialism is that the people collectively own the means of production, managed through the institution of the State. But in essence and practice it is nothing more than a kind of statism. As I have explained previously, the European ideology of socialism is contrary to Islam, which holds private property sacred and inviolable, as the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said:

كُلُّ الْمُسْلِمِ عَلَى الْمُسْلِمِ حَرَامٌ دَمُهُ وَمَالُهُ وَعِرْضُهُ

Everything of the Muslim is sacred upon the Muslim; his blood, his wealth and his honor (Sahih Muslim)

Private property, acquired through lawful means, is inviolable as per the Islamic Shari’ah. The socialist call for land reforms in which the land of its owner is forcefully seized from him, then divided up and redistributed among the landless, and likewise the seizing of factories and other means of production from their private owners and corporations, is totally contrary to the sacred teachings of Islam. It is therefore shocking that many Muslims embraced the evil European ideology of socialism, even arguing that modern socialism is in accord with the spirit of social justice that is undeniable within Islam. But Islam has prescribed the institutions of Zakat and Ushr (agricultural tithe), meaning that the needy have a right to a specified share of the accumulated wealth or profits of the wealthy, never to the actual ownership of their land and property. If the only means to effect justice in society is to have collective ownership of the means of production then Allah Most High would have surely legislated that. By embracing socialism, a Muslim is, in his ignorance, questioning the ultimate wisdom of Allah and the perfection of the Shari’ah. It is therefore disturbing that some so-called Ulama, even those from a deeply conservative and traditional school as Deoband, were proponents of socialism. Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani (1880-1976) was one such Deobandi cleric who was a lifelong socialist.

He reportedly said, “The state should abolish all private ownership, and should distribute things in equal proportions, on the basis of need” (Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, p.701, by Sayyid Abul Maqsud, 1994). Having concluded his studies at Deoband in 1909, Bhashani proceeded to Assam were he partook in stirring up peasants against both the British government and some Zamindars (wealthy landowners). He was known as the “Red Maulana”. Though he joined the Muslim League and was initially in favor of the establishment of Pakistan, he was not really communal but called for Muslim-Hindu unity and for them to direct their ire against the British. Some ten years after the establishment of Pakistan, in 1957, Bhashani helped form the leftist National Awami Party (NAP). In 1967, this political party split into two, with Bhashani leading the pro-Chinese faction, and Abdul Wali Khan (s/o of the Pashtun nationalist and traitor “Frontier Gandhi” Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) leading the pro-Soviet faction. By the time of Pakistan’s civil war in 1971, Bhashani had become a full blown secessionist and rebel. The breakup of Pakistan in that year was a bitter tragedy, a painful injury to the cause of Islam, Muslim solidarity and strength. Treacherous Muslims like Bhashani, blinded by foreign ideas originating in Europe such as socialism, but also Bengali ethnic nationalism, were instruments of dissension within the Ummah. Orthodox Sunni Islam clearly prohibits any call to ethnic nationalism which it describes as Jahiliyyah (barbarism or pre-Islamic ignorance) and likewise prohibits armed insurrection against any established Muslim government. Both these prohibitions were violated by the Bengali separatists who rebelled against the Pakistani State in 1971, as a consequence of which Bangladesh came into being. Though the supposedly “reactionary” so-called “Islamists” were also influenced by European ideas like socialism, Marxism and Leninism, they are certainly preferable to the leftists and socialists of the Muslim World, like Maulana Bhashani and his followers. Those “Islamists” like the Jama’ati Islami of Maududi ought to be lauded for remaining loyal to the Pakistani State in 1971. In East Pakistan they formed volunteer (Razakar) paramilitaries like Al-Badr, Al-Shams, etc., to counter the separatist Mukti Bahini rebels. Sadly, several of these loyalist leaders (Abdul Qadir Mulla, Muhammad Qamar-uz-Zaman, Chaudhry Mu’in-ud-Din, Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, Mati-ur-Rahman Nizami) affiliated with the Jama’ati Islami were later hanged by the Bangladeshi government. Then again, these so-called “reactionary”, “Islamist” factions, along with various Salafis and of course us mainstream Sunni Muslims, ought to be lauded for participating in the Jihad against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980s. Despite my considerable differences with the Ikhwanis, Salafis and likeminded groups, I find them preferable to the socialists and leftists, who openly backed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that had come to prop up the Communist traitors.

In conclusion, the socialists and leftists among the Muslims have, throughout the twentieth century, proven to be a force for harm to the interests of the Muslims. They were generally tools of the Soviet Union and Communist China. Due to their treachery, the Muslim World was harmed, parts of it coerced into godless secularism and Russian, European cultural imperialism. Many of the leftists in the Muslim World were also fluidly ethnic nationalists and separatists, due to whom much of the Muslim world was broken up, further divided and having to suffer armed insurrection and terrorism.