World Muslim League Leader Al-Issa: Convincing Islamic Voice for Peaceful Coexistence

The spectacular rise of Political Islam after the big events of 1979 had a spiralling negative effect towards the end of the Cold War. In the period after 1989, sponsored primarily by the Gulf and led by the Saudi Arabian clergy, the ideology of Political Islam proliferated with campaigns in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Chechnya and Bosnia. Pakistan became a custodian state for nurturing the ideology, which had a profound effect on its internal security and polity. Fortunately for India it was not hit too badly except in J&K. However, through the nineties and beyond, the trend of radical extremism proliferated even in India. Much depended on the interpretations of the Holy Quran which produced different shades of Islamic ideology and a consequent churning within the faith.

WHO IS AL-ISSA

• Sheikh Dr Mohammed bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa is a world-renowned scholar of Islam and a distinguished jurist
• He implemented several important reforms with regard to women’s rights as the Saudi Law Minister
• Of late, he has been one of the most eloquent spokesmen in the Islamic world for interfaith dialogues and harmony among the world’s religions
• The Muslim World League under his leadership has rejected the infamous ‘clash of civilisation theory’
• He also heads the Intellectual Warfare Center, a body affiliated with the Saudi Defense Ministry, dedicated to combating extremist and terrorist ideology.
• He has been recognised by the American Jewish Committee, the American Sephardi Federation and the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement for his leadership and initiatives to combat anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hate speech across the world

In most such cases the nurturing of these elements by the political communities for their nefarious purposes had a bounce-back effect. None was as profound as the one in Pakistan where a confusing set of narratives led to state sponsorship of terrorism in the form of proxy war in J&K. In due course, an internal cleansing movement by the radicals commenced in Pakistan creating huge internal security challenges for it. None could decipher what was attractive in the narratives of extremism which had brought 40,000 foreign fighters to the fold of Islamic State (Daesh).

A raging debate has been going on in the world about the best methods of countering Political Islam. The narratives it projects and its influence over multiple societies, which has brought it into confrontation with much of the rest of the world, need to be effectively countered.

In the midst of all the above, we welcomed to India a Saudi intellectual who is a quasi-cleric and an influential civil society leader. He displays the prevalent moderate thinking on Islam within the Saudi leadership. India and Saudi Arabia have the best of relations and that is why the visit of Sheikh Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa of Saudi Arabia, the Secretary of the Muslim World League, has come as a breath of fresh air. It is well known that a Counter Radicalisation policy has been under pursuance by Saudi Arabia ever since the advent of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS). Besides the slow adoption of some liberal practices, Saudi Arabia has opened up to entertainment, women empowerment and education in a bid to mainstream itself with the rest of the world. The traditional internal balance of power in Saudi Arabia appears to have shifted in favour of  moderate intellectuals with moderate Islam now under experimentation.

During his six-day visit, Sheikh Abdul Al Issa interacted extensively with all shades of Indian intellectuals including the political community, academia, members of the clergy of different faiths and veterans of the strategic community. He visited the Akshardham Temple and thereafter stated –“India is a great example of Unity in Diversity and my visit to the Akshardham temple in the national capital only served to reinforce the belief”.

In almost all his speeches at different institutions such as the India International Islamic Cultural Centre, Vivekanand International Foundation and the India Foundation, Sheikh Abdul Karim Al Issa stated that Islam had earned a bad name for itself by the deeds of a few and that the name and reputation has to be recovered. He said that when radical thinking started to proliferate, there were very few with courage to confront it. No one sensed the dangers of this phenomenon which took the world by storm; a minority holding the majority to ransom and upsetting the inter faith trust and balance which had been achieved to quite an extent through the sixties and seventies.

He opined the necessity of removing such intolerant and radical ideology from the roots and leaving no remnants of it on which it can grow again. To achieve this, narratives stronger than those of the radicals will need to be developed and pursued. A military approach alone, to eliminate these elements is not sufficient because they have succeeded in permeating Islamic societies in sufficient numbers. An approach to target the thinking in society has to be adopted. The radicals have motivated the hearts of Muslims and not their minds. Thus, with effective use of reasoning and rationale, convincing narratives of moderate Islam can be created. Poverty promotes radicalism as per Sheikh Abdul Karim Al Issa, so the alleviation of poverty is also essential if we wish to regain the moderate path. He was extremely appreciative of the Hindu faith for its line of moderate thinking and acceptance of people of all faiths around them including those existing as minorities.

“Younger generations have to be guarded against exposure to radical narratives which promote non acceptance of other faiths”

The Saudi intellectual leader particularly mentioned the role of women in society and how they naturally promoted moderate thinking. He was critical of Muslim families who handed over their children for informal religious education to clerics and others with a dubious record of the ideology they followed. Younger generations have to be guarded against exposure to radical narratives which promote non acceptance of other faiths.

It is heartening to see the beginnings of a counter radicalisation movement against radical extremism already underway in Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the holy Islamic shrines. This is just the beginning of the battle against radical extremism. It has to be given solid support through media, social media and word of mouth passage of narratives, which strengthen the face of moderate Islam. In India, there can be no other form of Islam except the traditional, middle path and tolerant one, which promotes India’s Unity in Diversity.