This fatwa has important implications for the question of whether devout, observant and knowledgeable Muslims can be loyal citizens of nations not ruled by Islamic law.
“Chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ is against Islam: Darul-Uloom Deoband,” by Mohammad Ali, The Hindu, April 1, 2016 (thanks to Lookmann):
In a fatwa issued to Muslims, the seminary said the slogan goes against “tauheed” (the idea of worshipping one god), which forms the core of Islam.
Amid an ongoing debate in the country over “Bharat Mata ki jai”, Darul-Uloom Deoband, the leading Islamic seminary of the Indian subcontinent, on Friday said that chanting of the slogan was against Islam. In a fatwa issued to Muslims, the seminary said Muslims should not chant the slogan because it goes against “tauheed” (the idea of worshipping the only God) which forms the core of Islam. Darul-Uloom Deoband referred to the Constitution of India and said forcing people to chant the slogan goes against the Constitution of India which allows its citizens to practice their own faiths.
The fatwa comes days after it was reported from the national capital that a madrassa student was allegedly beaten by some people after he refused to chant the slogan, “Bharat Mata ki jai”. The seminary issued the fatwa in response to several letters from Muslims asking it’s view about chanting the slogan which has seen intense polarisation over the issue.
The BJP reacted strongly to the fatwa with Union Minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti saying that by giving such an opinion the seminary “behaved like a hardliner”.
The fatwa, a copy of which is with The Hindu, said, “After the ‘Vande Mataram’ controversy, now people are being forced to chant ‘bharat mata ki jai’. Actually, some of the believers in Hindu faith consider India a goddess whom they worship. They treat the goddess ‘bharat mata’ the patron God and caretaker of the country. This belief certainly goes against the very idea of ‘tauheed’ which forms the core of belief in Islam. The followers of Islam can not compromise with the idea of ‘tauheed’“.
The fatwa went on to explain in detail about the idea of love for the country, and said, “India is our motherland and we love it a lot. But we can not worship even our motherland because of the essential belief that we worship only one God and that is Allah”.
“The Constitution of India allows its every citizen the freedom to profess and practice his/her religion. Nobody has the right to go against the Constitution and take law in their own hands by forcing somebody to do some thing which goes against the idea of the Constitution of India,” concluded the fatwa….