Source/Credit: The Times of India TNN
By Mohammed Wajihuddin | Apr 6, 2011
MUMBAI: Outraged over Pakistani cricket team captain Shahid Afridi's anti-India comments, a group of Muslim clerics and intelligentsia blamed the young cricketer's outbursts on "the doctored Islam that is being taught in Pakistani schools and madrassas". They advised Afridi to "utilize his time and resources to fight fanaticism, which is growing in Pakistan".
"Indians will never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis. I don't think they have the clean and large hearts that Allah has given us," Afridi was quoted as saying on a television channel. He later retracted his statement, but the damage had been done.
Eminent Indian Muslim scholars have said that his comments were immature and uncalled for. "If Allah has really given Pakistan and Pakistani Muslims such a large heart, why is it that the minorities, the Ahmedias and the Shias, live in fear there," asked Mumbai-based Shia scholar Maulana Zaheer Abbas Rizvi.
Young men such as Afridi who are role models for millions of cricket fans, said Rizvi, should not have spoken so irresponsibly. "It is this supremacist idea of Islam that is forcing well-off Pakistanis to flee that country. While the affluent are leaving the country, the poor are getting killed in the almost daily terrorist attacks in Pakistan," he said.
Scholars mentioned the recent murders of liberal voices such as Punjab governor Salman Taseer who had opposed the man-made blasphemy laws as an example of increasing intolerance in Pakistan. "I am shocked that Afridi forgot so soon the kind of magnanimity and hospitality Indians showed him and his team on the occasion of the semi-final match at Mohali near Chandigarh," said Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer. "Were not Indians large-hearted when they cheered Pakistanis' conduct on the field and off it? What else did he expect?" asked Engineer.
While agreeing that the media had created hype around cricket, Engineer asked Afridi to utilize his time and resources to fight fanaticism. "It shows an exclusivist, supremacist Islam, which children in Pakistan are growing up with."
Kamal Farooqui, a member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, said Afridi's statements should have been ignored. "Afridi couldn't stomach Pakistani's defeat at Mohali and India's win in Mumbai. His comments should be ignored," said Farooqui.
Read original post here: Muslim scholars slam Afridi's line
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